From Beyond the Morgue
by Nixa Jane
Summary: Shawn just wants to solve his latest case, but it isn't easy with Gus and Henry meddling in his love life, especially considering his love life consists of one bored workaholic detective on enforced leave. Sequel to Dah-Ling Store-It-Yourself. S/L Slash.
1. Death by Dustbunny

Note: This is a sequel to my story The Dah-Ling Store-It-Yourself. It's a whole new case, but it follows directly after the first story. Established Shawn/Lassiter.

* * *

**1987**

Shawn watched as his father carefully inspected the garage, nearly bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Can I go see Gus now?" he asked.

Henry ran a finger over the shelf, inspecting it for dust, before glancing around. Everything was put away and organized, Henry had to admit. He couldn't have done it better himself. "How did you get everything in those storage boxes?" he asked.

"You taught me well," Shawn said. "I arranged them with military-like precision."

Henry nodded, running a hand through Shawn's hair to mess it up. "You did good, kid," he said. "This place is spotless."

"So can I go see Gus?" Shawn asked.

"Yeah, but I want you home by seven," Henry said.

"Sure," Shawn said, throwing on his helmet and grabbing his bike. "See you then!"

Henry proudly surveyed the garage, before heading back to the house. He came to a stop in the driveway, frowning as he saw most of his tools stacked up in neat rows, his lawnmower, his tapes of _America's Most Wanted_.

And taped to the front was a sign written in blue crayon that said "Free Stuff."

"Shawn!" Henry shouted, but Shawn was already halfway down the street on his bike, peddling like mad.

_

**2009**

Shawn sneezed as he got attacked by another couple of thousand dust bunnies, waving a hand in the air to try and clear them out. He walked to the bottom of the stairs, and glared up where he could see the light on in the kitchen. "This is child abuse!" he shouted.

His father appeared at the top of the stairs, arms crossed. "You brought this on yourself," he said. "Just count yourself lucky I'm not locking the door."

Shawn sighed, looking back down at the mess at his feet. He'd been here for three hours so far, and everything looked worse than it had when he got there. He hadn't realized his father was such a pack rat, and what kind of punishment was this for a grown man anyway? Gus's parents never made him clean their basement.

Then again, Gus had never locked his father in the basement so he could go solve a murder, either, so that might account for the differences in parenting.

"I don't hear you working!" Henry shouted.

"You're going to be sorry when I die of pneumoconiosis!" Shawn shouted back.

"Pneumoconiosis is caused by years of dust inhalation, Shawn," Henry said, returning to the doorway. "And my basement's not exactly a coal mine."

"Maybe not, but have you ever heard of a feather duster?" Shawn demanded, sneezing again.

Henry disappeared again and Shawn heaved a heavy sigh, before another sneezing fit hit. He was just contemplating his chances of sneaking through the kitchen to the back door without being seen when Henry came stomping down the stairs, dragging his huge Shop Vac outdoor vacuum behind him.

Shawn frowned at him. "What are you doing?" he asked, confused.

"Well, you're obviously not going to get any cleaning done while you're down here complaining like a little girl," Henry said. "So I'm helping you get started."

"You're helping me?" Shawn asked. "What's the catch?"

"No catch, Shawn," Henry snapped. "Do you want help or not?"

"Help is good," Shawn said. "Please, feel free to do it all if you want."

"Not gonna happen, kid," Henry said. "I'm just going to vacuum up some of this dust. Then I'll go to the store and pick us up a couple steaks."

"Bribery," Shawn said. "You know me so well."

Henry turned on the vacuum, sucking the excess dust from the shelves. Shawn tiptoed over the cord to head for the stairs, and Henry caught him by the collar of his shirt without even turning around. He turned the vacuum back off and pointed at him. "Don't even think about it, Shawn," he snapped. "You owe me."

"I really don't think the punishment fits the crime," Shawn protested. "When I locked you in the basement you weren't down there more than fifteen minutes before Gus, the turncoat, let you out. I've been down here three hours already inhaling near-fatal quantities of dust."

"Well, if during those three hours, you had actually been working, you'd probably already be done," Henry told him, starting up the stairs. "And if you want that steak dinner, this place better be spotless by the time I get back."

Shawn frowned. What he'd really like to be doing is spending his Saturday with Lassiter, but they had spent the last few days together and his father was already getting suspicious of how he was spending his time. Gus was reluctant to cover for him, still traumatized by his last encounter with Henry.

Shawn wondered how Lassiter was coping without him. He'd spent the last few days mostly at Shawn's apartment, a little out of element. Vick had forced him to take two weeks off after he'd been grazed by a gunshot when apprehending a suspect, and Shawn was learning that Lassiter did not do well without something to keep him occupied. Shawn had been doing his best to make sure he didn't have a spare moment, but he'd been unable to get out of coming here.

Shawn sighed and finally got to work. He packed everything away in the storage boxes his father had left for him. It didn't take as long as he thought it would, and he figured his father was probably right. He could have been done an hour ago if he hadn't spent so much time complaining—but what would have been the fun in that? It only seemed fair his father should suffer too.

He heard the backdoor, and headed up the steps. "I'm done, okay, and what is with the five pairs of bowling shoes? Like you even—" Shawn broke off when he saw Lassiter standing in the kitchen instead of his father. Shawn glanced around in confusion, looking for any sign of Henry. "Lassie? What are you doing here?"

Lassiter looked as startled as he did. "I didn't know you were going to be here."

"I told you," Shawn protested instantly.

"You said you were going to IKEA-nize Pennywise's basement," Lassiter said. "I asked you what the hell that meant and you were already out the door."

Shawn shook his head. "You're really going to have to learn to speak my language if this is going to work, Lassie," he said. "That means I'm going to clean my father's basement, obviously."

"Obviously," Lassiter said disbelievingly.

"The questions is, what are _you_ doing here? At my father's house?" Shawn asked.

"He invited me," Lassiter said. "For dinner. He said he wanted to thank me, for what happened at the Dah-Ling Store-It-Yourself."

"Oh, god," Shawn said, going slightly pale. "And you fell for that?"

"What do you mean?" Lassiter asked.

"My father doesn't _thank_ people, not voluntarily, don't you know what this means?" Shawn demanded. "He _knows_."

"How could he know?" Lassiter asked. "It's only been four days, and we've spent most of them indoors."

"Are you kidding? He's the one who taught me everything. He could fake psychic almost as well as me." Shawn frowned. "It's actually kind of creepy being on this end of it. Is this how it is for you all the time?"

"If you mean, annoying, aggravating, and insufferable, then yes," Lassiter said.

"Insufferable?" Shawn asked, and grinned. "That's not what you said last night."

"Shawn," Lassiter started, but Shawn was already moving to the door, dragging the detective with him.

"We'll have to continue this conversation later, because we've got to get you out of here quick," he said. "I'll make up some excuse. I'll say you had to go to an NRA convention."

"That's not till next Wednesday," Lassiter protested.

"A knitting convention, then," Shawn said. "But you've got to go, now!"

He opened the door to shove Lassiter out, and his father came walking in with a grocery bag. "Oh, good, Lassiter, you're here."

"He was actually just leaving," Shawn said quickly. "There's been a knitting emergency."

"A knitting emergency?" Henry repeated.

"Hey, don't judge," Shawn said. "Everyone needs a hobby."

"Spencer," Lassiter snapped. "Henry, I do not knit."

"You don't say," Henry said. He turned to Shawn. "Is there some reason you don't want Lassiter here, Shawn?"

Shawn narrowed his eyes at him. It bothered him that he'd spent the whole afternoon with his father without any indication that he knew. Usually Henry wasn't able to keep out of Shawn's life for thirty seconds let alone an entire day, and Shawn didn't know what he was trying to accomplish. Still, he wasn't one to back down from a challenge.

"Me?" he asked. "Not at all."

"Good," Henry said. "Did you finish cleaning the basement?"

"It's very organized and dust free," Shawn said. "Next time someone gets locked in there it will be like a visit to a day spa."

"I disabled the lock, so we don't have to worry about that," Henry said. "Why don't you set the table?"

Shawn shoved Lassiter towards the table, pushing him down in a chair like he was part of the table setting—before reaching for the utensils and the plates.

"I'm gonna go put these on the grill," Henry told them. "Dinner should be ready in about thirty minutes. You'll keep Detective Lassiter entertained for me, won't you, Shawn?"

"Oh, I'll try my best," Shawn called after him.

Lassiter opened his mouth to speak after Henry had gone outside, but Shawn covered his mouth with his hand, before grabbing a napkin and scribbling something on it. He held out the napkin. It said: I think the house may be bugged!!!

Lassiter rolled his eyes and grabbed the napkin from him. "The kitchen isn't bugged," he snapped.

"You don't know my father," Shawn whispered, leaning towards the door to look out where his father was innocently starting the grill. He leaned down to look under the table, but he couldn't find any obvious recording devices.

"Maybe we should just tell him, get it over with," Lassiter said. "He was going to find out eventually."

"Okay, obviously you haven't been listening," Shawn said. "He already _knows_, he's trying to entrap us."

Shawn tapped his foot against the ground as he tried to plot his next move. He'd called Gus within an hour of his first kiss with Lassiter to tell him everything, but his father was a different matter entirely. Shawn hadn't planned to tell his father at least until one of them was on their deathbed.

It was hard enough keeping Henry out of his life as it was, and he figured this whole thing could go one of two ways. His father could go ballistic like he had on Keith Andrews, the first boy Shawn had ever kissed, a few years older and already driving, quarterback on the football team and so scared of his father he'd left on a scholarship at the end of the year and Shawn had never heard from him again.

Or Lassiter and Henry could become BFFs, and make Shawn's life a living hell. "Oh, this is not going to end well," Shawn said.

Lassiter caught Shawn's wrist when he started to pace to the other side of the kitchen, and pulled him back. "I thought you said your father knows you've dated guys? Why are you panicking?"

"Because there's knowing, and there's _knowing_," Shawn said. "Everytime I told him about it he'd listen about as well as when I tried to tell him I didn't want to be a cop. He thought I'd grow out of it."

"Shawn," Lassiter said softly, and Shawn stilled. "You are grown up. Relatively. Henry knows that. He knows you. He might surprise you."

Shawn dropped down into the chair beside Lassiter and slammed his head down onto the table. "Oh my god," he said. "You're so naïve."

"Henry and I have an understanding," Lassiter said. "I think you should let me talk to him. Maybe he does know, but even if he does, it would still be better if we told him."

"You want talk to my dad?" Shawn asked. "I knew you were brave, Lassie, I didn't realize you were suicidal."

Lassiter set his expression and got to his feet. "I can do this," he said. "I'll be right back."

Shawn caught Lassiter's hand as he turned to leave. "I promise I'll mourn you," he told him solemnly. "But I'm not wearing black. It clashes with my skin tone."

Lassiter rolled his eyes and went outside. He came back in twenty minutes later, looking dazed. Shawn got him a glass of water, and Lassiter resisted the urge to ask for something stronger.

"That went better than I thought it would, you even still have all your limbs," Shawn said. "Then again, you didn't actually tell him anything, did you?"

"No," Lassiter said miserably. "He started talking about his gun collection. Unusually I love to talk to Henry about his guns, but there was this whole different level to it this time, and I think he might have just threatened to kill me if anything ever happens to you."

"I hope you're seeing the gravity of this situation now," Shawn told him. "You should have made your escape when you had the chance."

Henry pushed his way back inside, holding a plate with the steaks. "They're done," he said cheerfully. Shawn tried to weigh the odds whether is father would stoop to poison. Henry dropped the steaks on the table, but all Shawn could spot were the seasonings.

Henry pulled some baked potatoes out of the oven that Shawn hadn't even seen him put in, and set them on the table by the steaks. It all looked very good, which Shawn attributed to his father's recent and worrying obsession with watching Martha Stewart, but he'd kind of lost appetite.

Lassiter didn't look much better off.

"Dig in," Henry said, grabbing the largest steak for himself.

Lassiter half-heartedly put one on his plate. Shawn didn't even bother with the pretense. He leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes in his father's direction.

"Well," Shawn said. "This is not at all awkward."

"Okay, Shawn, you have my attention," Henry said. "You want to tell me what's going on with you?"

"You obviously already know," Shawn said, and as soon as he said it he figured out how. Lassiter hadn't told anyone. Shawn had only told one person. "I'm guessing you got it out of Gus, what did you do, bribe him with a Pixy Stix?"

Henry looked like he was going to deny it for about thirty seconds, but then he met Shawn's eyes and flashed a grim smile. "Ice cream, actually," he said. "He caved as soon as I brought out the chocolate sauce and sprinkles."

"That's low, using sprinkles," Shawn said. "You know Gus can't resist them."

"Mr. Spencer," Lassiter started.

Henry pointed at him. "I'm talking to my son."

"No," Shawn said, glaring at his dad. "You arranged this little ambush so that Lassiter would be here, and if he wants to say something, then let him say it."

Henry dropped his fork and pushed his plate away. "Fine, talk," he snapped.

"The things that Shawn can do—well, I'll be honest, he astounds me, every day, with something new. I've never known anyone like him," Lassiter said carefully. "I care about him, a lot, this isn't just some fling."

Henry snorted in disbelief. "I never thought I'd see it happen," he said. "Shawn finally got you believing in his nonsense? I thought you were the one person I could count on to look past his little charades."

Shawn gave a little half-grin and slid lower in his chair, while Lassiter looked up to glare at Henry. "I'm not talking about his 'psychic' abilities, I know he doesn't have any," Lassiter snapped. "I'm talking about what an amazing detective he is."

"It's true," Shawn said. "I am an _amazing_ detective, and also, I've got great hair. So it's settled. Hey, did you guys see that Thunderbirds game last night?"

Henry ignored him, and looked at Lassiter like he'd never seen him before. "How did you figure it out?"

"I knew Shawn wasn't psychic about thirty seconds after meeting him," Lassiter said. "But if you're asking how I got him to admit it, he told me the truth himself."

Shawn's phone started blaring Mary J. Blige's _Family Affair_, which really, how appropriate. "It's Gus," he told them, jumping from his chair. "Got to take it. Could be important!"

"Shawn," Henry snapped, trying to grab Shawn as he went by. "Shawn!"

Shawn deftly sidestepped him and made his way into the living room. He didn't bother with any greetings when he answered the call. "You told my dad?"

"What?" Gus asked. "Shawn, where are you?"

"With my father, who _knows_," Shawn said. "I can't believe you told on me."

"He kept giving me ice cream, and chocolate, and _sprinkles_, Shawn, it was all very confusing," Gus said. "I might have said something about Lassiter. I don't remember."

"You're like a crack addict," Shawn said in disbelief.

"I'm nothing like a crack addict, Shawn," Gus snapped. "Everyone likes sprinkles."

"Well, whatever," Shawn said. "I need you to have a fake emergency now, so I can escape from the dinner from hell. My dad's acting like we're on the set of the Lifetime remake of _Leave It To Beaver_, and it's really starting to freak me out."

"There is an emergency, kind of," Gus said. "I'm at the office. I think we've got a case."

"Perfect." Shawn grinned. "I'll be right there." Shawn snapped the phone shut and made his way back into the kitchen. "While it pains me to cut this evening short," he said, mock-regretful, "that was Gus, and I've got a case."

Lassiter jumped up. "I'll come with you," he said quickly. "You might need my help."

"We're not finished here," Henry snapped, but Shawn and Lassiter were both already out the door.

"See," Shawn said as he hopped on his motorcycle and Lassiter wrestled with the door of his Crown Vic, "you're getting the hang of handling my father already. Run at the first available opportunity."

"I think he was trying to kill me with eyes," Lassiter said.

"You get used to it," Shawn assured him.

x x x x x x

Shawn beat Lassiter to the Psych office. Gus was in the entryway when he came in, running salt across the window with the intense focus of a madman. Shawn frowned at him. "That's it, Gus," he said. "I'm confiscating all of your _Supernatural_ DVDs. Enough is enough."

"Don't even joke, Shawn," Gus snapped, turning to glare at him, holding his little can of Morton Girl salt like it was the holy grail. "You know it doesn't hurt to be cautious."

"What caused this latest break from reality?" Shawn demanded. "Were you watching _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ again? Because I've told you before, Ryan Phillippe is alive and well and living in Hollywood."

"No, Shawn," Gus snapped. "And _I Know What You Did Last Summer_ was not about ghosts, everyone knows that salt lines only stop ghosts."

"It disturbs me that you think that," Shawn said. "Salt lines don't stop anything, Gus, except maybe ants, and they'd only go around it."

"I told our new client that I would make this a safe place for her," Gus said, in an eerily logical voice, considering his first line of defense was apparently a condiment.

Shawn leaned past him, and noticed a woman sitting on the Psych couch, a purse clutched in her hand. There was a slight bruise on her collarbone, pink turning purple. He waved at her, and she waved back uncertainly. "What's her story?" he asked.

A car door slammed, forestalling Gus's response, and he glared as he saw Lassiter getting out of his Crown Vic and heading towards the office. "Oh, great," Gus snapped. "What is he doing here?"

"Come on, Gus, you know Vick made him take a couple weeks off after he was shot, he's bored," Shawn said.

"You don't bring your boyfriend on a case," Gus hissed. "You don't see me bringing a boyfriend to work."

"No, but that probably has more to do with the fact that you're straight than any set rule," Shawn said.

"A girlfriend, whatever, you're missing the point!" Gus said.

"I think the problem is that you don't have a point. You don't even have a girlfriend, but if you did, she'd be more than welcome to come along," Shawn said.

"Okay, so it's been a bit of a dry-spell, but I have two jobs, and both of them are full time! You don't have to rub it in!" Gus snapped.

"I'm not—" Shawn protested. "Gus! You're being ridiculous!"

Lassiter came in the door and clapped his hands, eyes bright. "So what have we got?" he asked. He glanced at the salt slipping down the windowsill, but dismissed it quickly as just another inexplicable quirk in what was a very long line of them.

Gus haughtily snapped the salt can shut. "Why don't you go find out for yourselves," he said, before heading to his desk and sitting down with a flourish.

"Fine by me," Lassiter said, making a beeline for the client.

Shawn darted after him. "Hey, wait, Lassie, let me do the talking—"

Lassiter either didn't hear him, or was so used to ignoring him he didn't register what was said. He sat across from the woman, in Shawn's favorite armchair, and met her gaze. "What seems to be the problem here?" he asked.

Shawn stared at his occupied chair forlornly, while Gus raised one eyebrow in an 'I told you so' way. Shawn stuck his tongue out at him, and then sat on the arm of the chair, leaning against Lassiter's shoulder.

"I apologize for the rudeness of my associate, whom you may call Holland Oats," Shawn told her. "First, let us make our introductions. I am Shawn Spencer. Psychic sleuth, former star of _American Duos_, and sometimes model. I also played Chad on _Explosion Gigantesca de Romance_. My résumé is quite extensive."

She brightened a little. "Oh my gosh," she said. "You are Chad, I thought you were familiar!" She reached out to shake his hand. "I'm Eveline Graves, and I'm such a fan. I keep hoping they'll bring you back."

"Something may be in the works, but there's been scheduling conflicts," Shawn told her. "I always seem to be solving a crime."

"Spencer, please," Lassiter said, leaning forward. "Mrs. Graves, what can we help you with?"

Eveline sobered at once, and Shawn glanced over her. He could see her mascara had run, and been hastily fixed, like she had been crying and didn't have time to entirely reapply it. She was holding onto her purse like it was a security blanket, and she kept glancing behind her, like she expected an attack. Shawn had a bad feeling about this one. She obviously had money, with the expensive clothes and that Gucci purse, but beneath the pretty packaging she had battered wife written all over her.

"It's my husband Harvey," she said haltingly, and Shawn winced. Occasionally he didn't like being right. "I think…I think he's trying to kill me."

"I've heard enough," Lassiter said, getting abruptly to his feet and nearly knocking Shawn off the arm of the chair. "Ma'am, what you need to do is go to the police."

"Right," Shawn said, catching his balance and sliding into the vacated chair. "Wait. What? No, that's not how—"

"The police can't help me," Eveline told them. "That's why I came here."

"I assure you, the police deal with instances just like yours all the time," Lassiter said. "I can go with you to file the report if you'd like."

"You don't understand," she said. "There really isn't anything they can do, there's no way they can stop Harvey."

"And why is that?" Lassiter asked.

"Because, Mr. Oats, my husband is dead," Eveline said.


	2. Definitely Dead

Note: This part is a little shorter than usual, but if all goes well, the next part should be longer than usual, so it should hopefully even out.

* * *

"Of course he's dead," Lassiter said, and Shawn recognized it as the tone of voice that Lassiter had used on him, right after he'd told him he was psychic. Lassiter turned, grabbing Shawn's arm to haul him up from the chair and drag him across the room. "Spencer, a word."

"Ow," Shawn said, twisting out of Lassiter's grip. "You know, you don't actually have to drag me everywhere, I'm not your own personal Raggedy Andy."

Lassiter crossed his arms, glancing back at Eveline with narrowed eyes. "This woman needs serious help."

"I agree completely," Shawn said.

"You agree?" Lassiter asked, looking bewildered. "You agree with me?"

"Absolutely," Shawn said. "And I think we should get started right away."

"Get started with what?" Lassiter asked.

"With helping her," Shawn clarified.

"What? No, I mean she needs psychiatric help, Spencer," Lassiter snapped. "She thinks a ghost is trying to kill her."

"Gus thinks ghosts are after him all the time, and also clowns. You don't see me having him committed," Shawn said, glancing over at where Gus was holding his salt can and looking twitchy. "Then again."

"You can't help this woman," Lassiter said. "She needs therapy. You have to know that."

Shawn looked back at Eveline, running his eyes over her again, seeing everything. "No, you're wrong," he said. "You're not looking hard enough."

"Okay, fine, then tell me what you see, or I'm going to go back in there and suggest she get some real help," Lassiter snapped.

"You go first," Shawn said, returning his attention back to Lassiter. "Tell me what you see first."

"A nutjob," Carlton said. "She needs to be in an institution. Your turn. What do you see?"

Shawn closed his eyes. "I see someone that's scared," he said. "She's wearing a three hundred dollar dress but she didn't bother to button it right, and she's got fingerprint bruises around her neck. She says a ghost is after her, but you have to look past that. Just because a ghost isn't after her doesn't mean that nobody is."

Lassiter frowned, and glanced back at her. "You think someone's really trying to kill her?"

"I don't know," Shawn said honestly. "But this is how I operate, and we're not at the station, Lassie."

"Fair enough," Lassiter said. "But I don't like the idea of you playing into this woman's delusions."

"It's safer than not playing into them," Shawn protested. "We could go out there and assure her there's nothing to be afraid of, and she could end up dead."

Lassiter frowned. Ever since the moment Shawn had admitted the truth, he had been arguing his point of view in a way that made too much sense. Before he could have written him off as a nuisance, but when he laid out in this way with logic, it was hard to argue against. "Fine," he snapped.

"Good," Shawn said. "Now, I need you to get me in to see the body. It should still be in the morgue."

"How do you know?" Lassiter asked.

"Harvey Graves?" Shawn repeated. "He was a millionaire. Drowned three days ago in his pool. You didn't read about it?"

Lassiter frowned. "We've spent most of the last three days in your apartment watching Hill Street Blues reruns. How did you even read about it?"

"Some guy on a park bench had a newspaper. I saw it when I walked by," Shawn said with a shrug.

Lassiter closed his eyes. "Of course you did," he said. "You know, sometimes I miss it when you just said you were psychic. It made me feel less incompetent."

"You're very competent," Shawn protested instantly. "Which is why you're going to get me in to see that body, with no trouble at all!" Shawn grinned and patted Lassiter on the shoulder, before heading back to Eveline.

He sat back down in the chair and smiled Eveline. "Sorry about that, Holland has fits sometimes," he explained. "We're lucky he didn't break out into song again. It isn't pretty."

Eveline nodded uncertainly. "Do you think you can help me?"

"I am very in tune with the spirit world," Shawn said, wiggling the fingers of one hand beside his temple, before shaking his head. "But in order to best connect with your husband and determine his purpose, I need to better understand how he died."

"He drowned," Eveline said, sniffing into a handkerchief. "It was really quite unlike him."

"He didn't usually go into the pool?" Shawn asked.

"Oh, of course, all the time," Eveline said. "But to do laps. He was religious about it, every single night. Only when they found him, there was a raft in the pool. They said he feel asleep and fell off it, maybe hit his head on the way down."

Shawn frowned. "And you weren't home at the time?" he asked. She leaned away from him, and as her purse tilted he caught sight of a prescription bottle beside a lipstick. He read the label and made a mental note to ask Gus later what it was.

"I was," she said. "I was asleep. We sleep in different rooms, you understand. Harvey, he snores. Did."

Gus had wandered over, half pretending like he wasn't listening, but unable to resist. "Who found him?" he asked.

"Our maid," Eveline said. "Sani. She was quite distraught. It was somewhat of an overreaction, honestly. She's only been with us a few months."

Shawn glanced towards the back of the office, making sure Lassiter's attention was elsewhere. He was still talking into his cellphone, so Shawn turned back to Eveline. "We would like to stay at your home tonight. Evil spirits have the most power at around midnight, and that is when I will be most able to detect—"

Gus grabbed Shawn's arm and hauled him up. "Excuse us for a moment," he said, giving Eveline a wide, frozen grin, as he backed himself and Shawn away.

"Okay, seriously, what's with all the manhandling today?" Shawn demanded. "You know I bruise easy." Shawn pulled up his sleeve and examined his arm carefully. "I can feel it bruising already."

"You're not going to bruise, I barely touched you. Can we please focus on the problem at hand?" he hissed out of the corner of his mouth. "I'm not going into some haunted mansion, Shawn."

"You went into Haversham's mansion," Shawn protested. "It was totally haunted!"

"You were the one haunting it!" Gus snapped.

"But you didn't know that! And you were so brave, Gus, I was really proud of you. You didn't cry once," Shawn said.

"My job was on the line then!" Gus said. "My bravery came entirely from not wanting to end up on the streets."

"If it'll make you feel better, you can bring as much salt as you want, pepper too, maybe some oregano," Shawn said.

"I'm serious, Shawn," Gus said.

"So am I. Look at her, she's scared," Shawn whispered. "Be a man!"

Gus steadied himself and turned to Eveline. She really did look desperate, and scared. He took a deep breath. "We would very much like to stay in your home tonight to protect you."

Eveline scribbled her address on a piece of paper and leaned over to hand it to Shawn. "I'll make arrangements with the concierge for your arrival. Please, come as soon as you can." She got to her feet, pulling her slipping dress back up over one shoulder. "I can't thank you enough for helping me. I didn't know where else to turn."

"We've got everything under control, I know exactly what I'm doing," Shawn said. She nodded and left the office, and Shawn turned to Gus with a frown. "What's a concierge? That's what, a kind of lounge chair?"

"Oh, yeah, you know exactly what you're doing," Gus said wryly. "It's a doorman, Shawn."

"That was going to be my second guess," Shawn told him.

Lassiter walked over to join them, snapping his cellphone shut. "I got us in to see the body," he said.

"Aren't you on leave?" Gus asked. "How did you manage that?"

Lassiter looked smug. "I pulled some strings with my connections in the department," he said.

"And how is Juliet doing?" Shawn asked.

Lassiter glared at him, but relented. "She says hi," he said reluctantly.

Shawn grinned. "When can we go?" he asked.

"Now," Lassiter said. "What happened to Mrs. Graves?"

Gus opened his mouth to answer, and Shawn quickly elbowed him to cut him off. "We sent her home. We told her we'd call her with any updates."

Lassiter nodded and started towards the door. "Good, then let's go."

Gus grabbed the sleeve of Shawn's shirt to hold him back. "Lying to the boyfriend already?" he asked.

"What Lassie doesn't know doesn't hurt him, and we need access to that house," Shawn said. "I don't think he'd approve of us staying overnight at La Casa de Graves."

"I wonder why," Gus said wryly. "Probably because it's a monumentally stupid idea, and one we're not prepared for at all? You don't know anything about fighting ghosts."

"I've seen the Ghostbusters like a million times," Shawn said, and then frowned. "Now you've got me doing it. Ghosts aren't real, we're looking for a flesh and blood murderer."

"Is that supposed to make me feel better?" Gus demanded.

Shawn seemed uncertain. "Yes?"

"Sometime today would be good!" Lassiter yelled at them.

"We'll finish this discussion later," Gus said, starting for the door.

Shawn picked up the Morton Girl can. "You forgot your salt!" he called after him.

x x x x x x

"Yep," Shawn said. "He's definitely dead."

Harvey Graves was not a pretty corpse. Not that corpses were generally pretty, but Harvey hadn't started out all that attractive to begin with, and a three night stay at the morgue hadn't helped him any. Gus looked physically ill, and Shawn had to grab his wrist to keep him from fleeing the room.

"What killed him?" Lassiter demanded.

Juliet looked anxious, probably because technically she wasn't supposed to let semi-official consultants and off-duty detectives in to view high-profile corpses, even ugly ones. "He drowned," she said.

The coroner was new, younger than the last, and he looked bored. He was eating peanut butter out of the jar and reading a Sports Illustrated. Shawn cleared his throat to try and get everyone's attention on him, but apparently he couldn't compete with the swimsuit edition. "I'm sensing some bad juju here," he said.

Juliet looked interested, and her curiosity was winning out over her anxiousness. "What is it, Shawn?"

Shawn brought his hands to his head and squinted, running his eyes over the body. The body was translucent white, the lips tinted blue. He saw a bruise around the upper arm, and it looked like how he imagined his arm was going to look at the end of the day, from all of Lassiter and Gus's dragging him around. Shawn focused in on an open manila folder that was laid out beside the coroner. He ran his eyes over it quickly and latched onto one word.

Shawn spun so his back was to them, and pulled Gus with him. "What is Zolpiden?" he whispered.

"It's Ambien," Gus said.

Shawn nodded, then leaned close again. "What's Ambien?" he asked.

"It's to help people sleep, Shawn," Gus whispered in irritation.

Shawn stepped back up to the body, framing his hands around the man's head without touching him. "I'm sensing something, he had Ambien in his system," Shawn said, pulling away with a gasp. "But he didn't have prescription for it. His wife did."

Juliet frowned, grabbing the report to glance through it. "Why weren't we informed of this?" she asked.

"It was going to be in my report," the coroner said uninterestedly.

Shawn read his nametag. His name was Dave, but he was not Super at all.

"The dose was negligible, it wouldn't have killed him," Dave finished. "Thus, cause of death: drowning."

"It wouldn't have killed him alone, no," Shawn said, backing away from the body. "But it may have been just enough to keep him from waking up when he went under water." Shawn pressed his eyes shut. "I can see it. Someone was dragging him outside, then helped him down on the raft, he was drowsy, they pushed him out into the middle of the pool, waited for him to slip off and under, maybe even held him down, it isn't clear, it's like I'm seeing it through his eyes, everything's blurred, like I'm under water, Lassie!" Shawn grabbed onto Lassiter, clutching the sides of his suit jacket and hiding his face in his neck. "Harvey Graves was murdered!"

Juliet frowned. "Are you sure?"

Shawn swayed against Lassiter in exhaustion, and nodded tiredly. "Harvey Graves swam laps every night, it was the only reason he ever got in the pool. Who would take a sleeping pill before going out to swim laps?"

Lassiter nodded, turning to Dave, who was licking peanut butter off his spoon. "I need you to run a full toxicology—"

"Carlton," Juliet interrupted. "You're not here officially." She turned to he coroner. "I need you to run a full toxicology report. I want to know exactly how much Ambien he had in his system, not this cursory overview you've done."

Dave sighed, and screwed the top back on his peanut butter. "Yeah, fine," he said.

Gus was the first to leave, disappearing from the room like a Jackal. Juliet followed him out, and Lassiter went after her, with Shawn still hanging onto him. Juliet watched them with a frown.

"You two have been acting very strangely," she said. "Is there something I should know?"

"Yes, actually," Shawn said, straightening up. "Lassiter and I are a couple now. We're shackin' up. Making the beast with two backs. Doin' that crazy little thing called love. We're going to send our Christmas cards together and everything."

"Right," Juliet said disbelievingly, before turning on her heel and leaving.

Shawn turned to Lassiter. "Why is that before we were dating everyone thought we were sleeping together, and now that we're sleeping together no one will believe we're dating?"

"Who believes anything you say either way?" Lassiter asked.

"Most people, actually," Shawn said. "You'd be surprised the crazy things I can get people to believe."

Lassiter sighed. "Sadly that's probably true," he said. "But are you sure about Graves? I thought he was our suspect, and now you're saying he's the victim?"

"He's dead, he was never a suspect, don't be Gus," Shawn said. "But yes. Harvey Graves is one of those Fortune Five Hundred types, he wouldn't take Ambien, wouldn't want to be out of control. Those pills belonged to Eveline. I saw the bottle in her purse."

"You think she killed him?" Lassiter asked. "And the guilt's getting to her?"

Shawn shook his head. "No," he said. "She's the one that helped me realize something was off about Graves' death. She wouldn't have provided evidence to incriminate herself, even if she was going crazy with guilt, she would have kept that part out of it."

"Okay, but we still need to talk with her," Lassiter said. "If it wasn't her, it was probably someone that had access to her pills. We need to see if she noticed any missing."

"Woah, there, Lassie, slow down," Shawn said. "You work for me now. I've got this. What I need you to do is to go find out everything you can about Harvey Graves, and then report back."

Lassiter frowned. "Wait, is this what you've been doing all this time? Sending Guster off to research and then having a miraculous 'psychic' vision?" he demanded.

"Yes," Shawn said. "I know. It's an honor to be a part of my process. Try not to be so awed that your work ethic suffers."

Lassiter sighed. "And what are you going to be doing?" he asked.

"I'm going to question Eveline some more," Shawn said. "Maybe sneak around her house a little. Check the underwear drawers. The bathroom cabinets. Under the sink. The usual."

Lassiter rolled his eyes, and caught Shawn's wrist as he stepped away to tug him back, discreetly brushing his lips across his forehead in a chaste kiss. "Be careful," he said gruffly.

"I'm always careful," Shawn said.

"You're never careful," Lassiter said. "Last time I took my eyes off you for two seconds you went to meet a murderer with Buzz for backup."

"Buzz is awesome back up," Shawn said defensively. "Did you know he's the five-time runner up at Qsar?"

"What the heck is that?" Lassiter asked.

"Laser tag!" Shawn said excitedly. "Seriously, you've never played? Gus will never play paint ball with me because he doesn't like getting dirty, so we compromised on laser tag, and it is awesome."

"You're talking about a game? How exactly does that qualify anyone for anything?" Lassiter demanded.

"Laser tag, gun fights, it's all the same," Shawn said.

"It's nothing like the same," Lassiter snapped.

Shawn frowned. "How did we get on the subject of laser tag?"

"You were using that to try and convince me that Buzz was good back up," Lassiter said. "But you said he was runner-up, he didn't even win the damn thing. Who was the champion? Some twelve-year-old nerd?"

"Actually, it's me," Shawn said, and grinned. "So you should really worry less! I can take care of myself."

"Spencer," Lassiter said, caught a little by surprise, but Shawn was already out the door, chasing after Gus and Juliet.


	3. About the Graves

Note: Thanks to all the reviewers! Sorry that I'm taking a little longer between updates than last time. Work has been so crazy that lately I can only write on the weekend.

* * *

Gus was waiting at the car when Shawn came out of the morgue. He had his arms crossed, and Shawn didn't think he looked very happy. "Okay, what now?" he demanded, as he pulled open the passenger side door. "Are you still upset that I arranged a slumber party with a bunch of murder suspects?"

"What happened to my candy, Shawn?" Gus demanded. "You know I like to have Red Vines in the glove box for when I'm stressed, and they're all gone."

"I donated them to a good cause," Shawn said. Gus did not look appeased, so Shawn let out a sound of frustration and turned to face him. "Look, if we survive the night, I will you buy more Red Vines, does that make you feel better?"

"No it doesn't make me feel better!" Gus snapped. "What do you mean _if_ we survive the night?"

"Did I say that part out loud?" Shawn asked with a frown. "I meant, _after_ we survive the night, obviously."

Gus glared at him some more, but got into the driver's seat in a huff. "You know, what's the point of you sleeping with some gun-toting detective if you're not going to keep him around for protection?"

"Guns are generally not the kind of protection I'm concerned with when it comes to Lassiter," Shawn said. "He's my boyfriend, not my bodyguard."

"I'm just saying," Gus said. "I thought he was going to help on this case? Maybe you should go with him. I could do research."

"I've got Lassiter doing the research," Shawn protested.

"You need to learn the proper way to delegate, Shawn," Gus snapped. "You take the man with the gun as backup. You send me to do the research so that I don't get killed."

"If that's what you want," Shawn said easily. "You're being really grown-up about this, I'm impressed, Gus, really. I thought you might get a little self-conscious that Lassiter was going to take your place as my partner, but if I'd known you'd be this obliging, I would have suggested that I go with him. In fact, maybe I'll just—"

As soon as Shawn went for his cellphone, Gus ripped it out of his hands. "That's not what I meant," he snapped. "I'm your partner, not Lassiter."

"Exactly," Shawn said, taking the phone back. "You're my partner. So let's go solve a murder, what do you say?"

"Fine," Gus said, and started the car. "But you owe me three packs of Red Vines."

"You got it, buddy," Shawn said.

"Where is this place anyway?" Gus asked.

"Padaro Lane," Shawn said, unfolding the address that Eveline had written down for him.

"Padaro Lane?" Gus echoed disbelievingly. "Are you serious?"

"Only very rarely," Shawn said. "But yes, that's what it says."

Gus was looking more at ease. "Okay, okay, that's okay then," he said. "Those places are mansions, Shawn, very high end. I bet there's nothing creepy about this place at all."

"That's the spirit," Shawn said. "Pun entirely intended."

"What pun?" Gus asked.

"Spirit," Shawn said. "You know like—nevermind, the moment is gone. Turn here."

Gus made the turn with a frown. "How do you even know where Padaro Lane is?" he demanded.

"I was a live in manny here for like three weeks once," Shawn said.

"No way," Gus said.

"Okay, so it was three days," Shawn said. "How was I supposed to know it's a bad idea to let kids stay up all night watching the Twilight Zone?"

"Common sense?" Gus asked.

"You know my sense isn't common, Gus," Shawn said.

"I can't believe people actually trusted you with kids," Gus said.

"Kids love me," Shawn said. "Little Skylar still writes. He's in junior high now, can you believe it? They grow up so fast."

Gus looked disturbed. "Well, whatever. Is this place close or what?"

"Turn right," Shawn said, without looking up. "About ten minutes down this road you're going to see a giant stone wall that looks fit for Camelot."

Shawn leaned back in the seat and closed his eyes. He knew they had arrived when he heard Gus's startled intake of breath. "I want to live here, Shawn," Gus said.

Shawn leaned forward, running his eyes over the mansions. They looked more like museums. He snorted. "Please, they're not all they're cut out to be," he said.

"How would you know?" Gus demanded.

"I lived here for three days, Gus, pay attention," Shawn said. "It was too big. I kept getting lost. Everyone communicated by intercom. Give me a little house by the beach any day."

"Then why did you want to stay here so bad?" Gus asked.

"Because I think our killer is someone that lives there," Shawn said. "We need to see them there together. We need to see how they interact. I need to touch things. Look in closets. The usual. The house is bigger, the M.O. remains the same."

"I don't see why we have to spend the whole night there for that," Gus protested.

"Because the house is bigger, I don't know how long we'll need." Shawn pointed at one of the houses. "There, that's the one."

Gus eyed it appreciatively. There was a large steel gate closing off the driveway, painted black with gold leaves wound around the spires. Gus leaned forward to hit the intercom, and the gate started opening on its own before he could touch it. He turned to glare at Shawn. "That gate is opening on its own."

"That's cause it's automatic," Shawn said, and pointed to a security camera. "And someone's probably waiting for us."

Gus carefully drove up the driveway. The house was bigger than the Santa Barbara police station, and three stories at least. The exterior was clean grey cobblestones, with vines crawling up the sides. "This doesn't look so bad," Gus said, cheering up a little as he got out of the car. "Yeah. This place definitely isn't haunted. It's properly landscaped and everything."

Shawn followed Gus out of the car, and was about to agree when something made him look up. The fluffy white Santa Barbara standard issue clouds were growing darker by the minute, and it wasn't just a result of the lowering sun. Shawn kept an eye on Gus out of the corner of his eye, hoping he didn't notice, as he led the way up the front steps.

Gus reached out to swing the brass door knocker. It was molded to look like some kind of monster with a mustache, or possibly just someone really old. As it swung back to knock against the door, the sky opened, raining down on them in sudden torrents. Gus pulled his hand away from the knocker in disbelief.

"Okay, so that's a little weird," Shawn admitted. "But it doesn't mean anything."

The door was pulled open, a backlit figure staring down at them in distain. The man was wearing an old tuxedo, bow tie resting at his throat. He looked to be well over six feet tall, thin as a rail, and pushing a hundred at least. Shawn watched him, expecting him to intone the words 'you rang?'

Gus looked frozen in place, but Shawn supposed that was better than running away. "You must be Mr. Spencer and Mr. Guster," the man said, but it was a quiet, unassuming kind of voice, and it failed to meet Shawn's expectations.

"Yes, we are," Shawn said. "And we appear to be getting wet."

"Of course, sirs, come in," the man said, stepping out of the way. "Aldis Matheus the Seventh, at your service."

"Seventh, huh?" Shawn asked, running a hand through his hair, droplets raining down onto the tile floor of the entryway. "How does that work, exactly, you just keep naming your kids the same thing until you run out of numbers?"

"I don't have any children of my own, sir, I have dedicated my life to the Graves," he said. "I am the last Aldis Matheus."

"I'm sorry to hear that," Shawn said. "Do you mind if I call you Aldy?"

"I do, sir," Aldis said. "If you will excuse me I will find Mrs. Graves. Please wait here."

Shawn nodded vaguely as Aldis left and then started to wander off. Gus reached out to grab him. "He said to wait here, Shawn," Gus said.

"He said please, please implies suggestion," Shawn said, trying to pull away, but Gus had a death grip on him. "Dude, chill."

"You don't think any of this is at all odd?" Gus demanded. "We're having a storm, Shawn, in Santa Barbara, in _August_, and the butler looks like a cousin of the Addams Family."

"Don't be so melodramatic, it's nearly September, and anyway, it's just a little rain, it hardly qualifies as a storm," Shawn told him.

There was a large crash as a branch slammed into a window, rain pounding against it. "Okay, so maybe it's a little windy, too," Shawn said.

"Do you think it's raining everywhere, or just at this house?" Gus asked nervously.

"Can you even hear yourself?" Shawn asked.

"I'm so glad you're both here!"

Shawn looked up at the voice. Eveline was at the top of the stairs, carefully making her way down. Shawn noticed the way she was holding onto the rail so tight her knuckles were white. She'd traded the boots she had on earlier for a pair of black ballet flats, and he frowned as he noticed the red line across her right ankle, and the fainter, matching mark on her left.

"Please," she said, "come with me. Let's have a drink."

Eveline led them to a kind of hybrid office and library, and walked to a wet bar in the corner. "What'll you boys have?" she asked.

"We don't drink on the job," Gus said quickly. "But we'll have a couple Shirley Temples if you have some Grenadine."

"Shirley Temples?" Shawn echoed. "Seriously? When did you turn into a ten year old girl?"

"Make that two Roy Rogers instead," Gus said, before turning to Shawn. "Is that better?"

"Not significantly," Shawn said.

Eveline looked bemused, but she nodded. "Coming right up," she said. She mixed the drinks and then handed one to each of them.

Shawn bit at the straw for a minute before sucking up half the drink all at once. "This is pretty good," he admitted.

"You got that right," Gus said enthusiastically. "This is some Grade A Grenadine."

Eveline sat down in armchair, holding a whiskey for herself. "Crazy weather, isn't it?"

Gus nodded. "Does it rain . . . here . . . a lot?" he asked haltingly.

"In Santa Barbara? Not usually," she said. "At least not in the summer. Are you new here, Mr. Guster?"

"Actually he's lived here all his life," Shawn said distractedly, as he walked over to the large fireplace at the back wall. There was a portrait hanging above it of a beautiful young girl. She was giving a kind of wry half smile, a spark in her blue eyes. Her blonde hair had been curled to make her look like she was a starlet from the twenties, but the portrait was only dated 1992.

"That was Harvey's sister," Eveline told him, when she saw what had drawn his attention. "She died very young, before Harvey and I met. I don't think he ever quite got over it."

Shawn stared at the portrait, eyes narrowing. Someone had scratched a single word across the bottommost edge in very small print, from one end to the other, over and over. Holly Holly Holly Holly Holly. After a moment, he turned away.

"Her name was Holly," Shawn said.

"Yes, it was," Eveline said, seeming impressed. She leaned forward. "I would have liked to have met her, but she was very troubled. He didn't like to talk about it, but I always had the impression she had taken her own life."

"When did you meet Harvey?" Shawn asked.

"Oh, my, at least, fifteen years ago, now, I guess?" she said. "It's so hard to recall. It's so painful to think about."

"But you don't miss him, of course," Shawn said. Gus spun to glare at him, but Eveline just shrugged.

"I won't lie, Harvey was a horrible man. He cared for nothing but himself, and I was just the trophy wife. Don't be surprised," she said, noting their expressions at the blunt admission. "I have no illusions about what I was. But in my defense I was only twenty when I met him, I had no idea what I was getting in to."

"Why is it that you think Harvey would want to kill you?" Shawn asked.

"You're probably wondering how I got these bruises," she said, looking up.

"I wasn't actually, I know you fell down the stairs," Shawn said.

Eveline raised an eyebrow. "You are worth every penny, Mr. Spencer," she said. "That's very close to the truth, only I didn't fall, I was pushed. I was very disoriented right after, but I recall hearing someone whispering, someone saying I had to die too. I even felt the hand at my throat."

"And you think it was your husband?" Shawn asked.

"I know how it sounds," she said. "But I don't really feel like he's gone. I can't explain it. Things go missing, things that I get rid of reappear. My pearl earrings, they're nowhere to be found, but Harvey's cufflinks, the ones I donated to charity, they appeared back on my dresser just last week. If anyone would be capable of sticking around after death just to make my life miserable, it would be Harvey. He always told me I wouldn't ever be rid of him."

Shawn nodded. "I think we should get to work, Eveline," he said. "It's getting late, and whatever spirits may be here, they should be showing soon."

Eveline got to her feet. "What do you need me to do?" she asked. "How can I help?"

"All we need you to do is to go get some well deserved sleep," Shawn said. "We're going to take care of everything."

Eveline smiled at him tiredly. "Thank you, both of you," she said, before turning to the intercom and activating it. "Aldis? Can you please come show our guests their rooms?"

"What did I tell you?" Shawn whispered. "It's all intercoms all the time. It's like rich people haven't even heard of phones."

"Goodnight gentleman," Eveline said. "If you need anything, anything at all, Aldis and Sani are both at your disposal, as am I."

Eveline left the room to head back up the stairs, and Shawn followed her out of the room. Aldis was coming from another hall, his expressionless face aimed about three inches to the side of them at all times. "If you would please follow me," he said.

Shawn started to step forward when The Divinyls started singing 'I Touch Myself' from somewhere in the region of his pants. Gus's eyes had widened in horror, and Shawn scrambled to grab his cell phone while Aldis looked on indifferently.

"I have to take this call," Shawn said, with as much dignity as he could muster. "It sounds important." He stepped away from Aldis and Gus, heading back towards the front door. He saw the monitor that had been set up beside the door, showing the front gate. There was a car parked right outside it.

"Lassie?" Shawn said, answering the call.

"Where are you?" Lassiter demanded.

"I'm still at Eveline's," Shawn said. "But then you know that, because you're parked outside her front gate staring at Gus's car."

"Seriously, how do you do that?" Lassiter demanded.

"Give a wave," Shawn said. "I can see you on the security monitor."

Lassiter heaved a sigh. "We had plans tonight, you know," he said.

"We can meet up tomorrow. Eveline needs us here," Shawn said. "We're ghost hunting. Well, Gus is ghost hunting. Mostly I'm here for the ridiculously opulent surroundings and the endless supply of Roy Rogers."

"Why didn't you tell me you were planning this?" Lassiter demanded.

"You would have tried to stop me," Shawn said easily.

"I wouldn't have tried, I would have stopped you," Lassiter said.

"Well, then why are you surprised I didn't tell you?" Shawn asked.

"Get out of there right now, Spencer," he said. "You're the one that told me you think someone's really trying to kill her."

"Someone is," Shawn said. "Which is why Gus and I are acting as her bodyguards."

"Oh, great, so it'll end up a double homicide instead," Lassiter snapped.

"Not to get bogged down with petty details, but there's three of us," Shawn said. "Wouldn't that be a triple homicide?"

"No, Guster will probably be fine, because I expect he's going to run at the first sign of trouble," Lassiter said. "He's the only one of you with sense."

"Touché," Shawn said. "I promise I'll be careful."

"Damn it, Spencer," Lassiter said. "Why do you have to do this?"

"Well, who else is there?" Shawn asked.

"Fine," Lassiter snapped. "But you need anything, you call me, I'll be right there."

"Okay, but I really don't think you've thought this through. Your back is going to give you problems all week if you stay in that car all night."

"What? How did I was going to stay here—"

"Please, don't insult me," Shawn said. "I left some snacks for you in the glove box. Don't fill up on Red Vines."

Shawn hung up and turned back towards Gus and Aldis. Aldis remained unmoved, but Gus was definitely glaring at him. "If you are ready, sir?" Aldis said.

"Call me Shawn," he said. "This 'sir' stuff kind of freaks me out."

"Of course, sir," Aldis said, and turned to lead them up the stairs. Shawn and Gus followed him up, and Shawn examined the steps carefully. He saw a few drops of blood around the middle, and when the reached the second floor, he noticed there was a small hole on either side of the top step, like someone had set up a tripwire with a pair of tacks.

"The lights are all on motion sensors," Aldis told them, just as the hallway in front of them started lighting up one segment at a time. "They will come on and go off on their own."

"That's amazing," Gus said, waving his hand at the wall experimentally. "I can't even see them!"

"They're in the crown molding," Shawn said distractedly.

Aldis stopped halfway down the massive hallway. He pointed down the rest of the way, where Shawn could just make out a pair of huge black double doors. "That is where Mrs. Graves sleeps," he said, before pointing to the two doors on each side of the hallway where they had stopped. "These rooms will be yours. Use the intercom if you need anything."

Aldis disappeared back down the hall, the lights flickering on and off after him as he went. "Okay, I get first pick of the rooms," Gus said.

"You can have them both if you want, we're not going to be sleeping, Gus," Shawn said. "We're here to investigate."

"I can't stay up all night, Shawn," Gus protested. "I need a good six hours at least. You know I get sleepy."

"Come on, tough it out, I'll make you another Roy Rogers," Shawn said. "And hey, guess what? I was right, the murderer is someone in the house."

"How can you be sure?" Gus demanded. "We just got here."

"Because someone had a tripwire set up on the stairs, that's why Eveline fell down them," Shawn said. "Oh, oh! Dude, I think the butler did it!"

"He's like a hundred and eighty five," Gus said.

"Don't be an ageist," Shawn said.

"How could someone fall down the stairs because of a tripwire and not even notice?" Gus demanded.

"Same way someone could fall off a float in a pool and not wake up," Shawn said. "She takes Ambien when she sleeps. Hears a noise, comes to investigate, but she's not completely awake. Next thing she knows, she's on the ground at the bottom of them with someone hovering over her."

"Why wouldn't they have finished her off?" Gus demanded. "They had her alone."

"Same reason they set a tripwire on the stairs instead of pushing her," Shawn said. "So they wouldn't have to do it themselves. Someone tried to strangle her, Gus, but they couldn't do it. They probably don't even think they're murdering anyone. In their mind, they're just arranging accidents."

"So they're psychotic as well, that's good to know," Gus said stiffly. "I'll be leaving now."

Shawn waved a hand, turning on the lights in the hall behind them. "Oh, look at the pretty lights, Gus! Don't you want to go exploring in the house, and watch them come on?"

"You seriously think that's going to tempt me?" Gus demanded.

"Honestly I'm not sure what to do with you anymore," Shawn said. "I know I'm supposed to be the crazy one, but it's like you're trying to beat twenty years of my craziness all in one night. I think your chances are good, by the way."

"I'm not crazy for being nervous around a murderer, Shawn!" Gus snapped. "You're the one that's crazy for not being worried!"

"Yeah, but you think the murderer is Casper," Shawn protested.

"Everyone knows Casper was a friendly ghost," Gus said. "I'm talking about the spirit of Harvey Graves."

There was a flash of white light behind Gus, and Shawn went very still, hoping he hadn't noticed. "Was that lightening?" Gus demanded.

"It's just a faulty motion sensor, probably, don't be ridiculous," Shawn said, which was right about when the thunder started.

"I'm getting out of here, Shawn!" Gus said. "Don't you ever watch horror movies? We're expendable. Everyone knows it's only the pretty girl that lives. Eveline'll probably be just fine."

"Okay, I'll give you that the freak storm is a little weird, Gus, but it's just bad luck," Shawn said. "You know what they say about superstition, it makes an ass out of you and me."

"That's assume," Gus said. "Because it's Ass-U-Me."

"Huh," Shawn said. "That does make more sense, but regardless, I've heard it both ways!"

"You have not!" Gus protested.

"Okay, fine, but that's why I need you, Gus! You have like these whole hidden depths of trivial information. You pay attention to the stuff that I don't."

Gus seemed hesitant. "Okay, but my usual rules apply."

"No entering a room first, or last, no searching for fuse boxes and you want a weapon if I'm going to leave you alone," Shawn said. "Of course you understand that there being only two of us, you will actually have to decide whether you want to enter the room first or last, and the only weapon I have is this little green toy soldier that I found in my pocket."

Shawn held the toy soldier out. Gus eyed it dubiously for a moment and then snatched it out of Shawn's hands. "We'll alternate. You go first, then I'll go first."

"Deal," Shawn said. He looked back towards Eveline's room. "What time is it?"

"It's like nine forty five," Gus said.

"I bet the maid's still awake," Shawn said. "We need to talk with her."

"I'll find us an intercom," Gus said.

"Forget the intercom, Gus," Shawn said. "We need to see her, face to face, I need to judge her reactions to my questions, come on."

"How do you know where to go?" Gus asked him.

"What makes you think I know where I'm going?" he asked. "Our job is to snoop around. It's better this way, we might stumble on something that breaks this whole case."

"Or we could get lost never to be heard from again," Gus said.

"Because that happens so often in the wealthy suburbs of Santa Barbara," Shawn said. "People go missing in their houses all the time."

"You're the one that said it was easy to get lost!" he protested.

"Yeah, but I didn't mean to imply I got stranded in their billiard room or something," he said. "You're fine, stop obsessing. Do you have any samples of anti-anxiety meds?"

"I'm not taking drugs, Shawn," Gus snapped.

"I was going to suggest you give them to me," Shawn said. "You're kind of stressing me out." He started down the stairway. There were little blue lights at the edge of the stairs like the kind they had in movie theaters, and they came on each time they went to the next step.

"I'm telling you, this place is spooky, Shawn, I don't like it," Gus snapped.

"It isn't spooky, this is technology, come on, Gus, you love this stuff," Shawn protested. "We should totally get motion sensor lights for the office."

"Yeah, we can put them up where you had the zip line that lasted all of ten days," Gus said.

"I had to take it down, you know that. I was nearly decapitated!" Shawn said.

They reached the bottom of the stairs and the entryway lights came on by themselves. Gus grabbed Shawn's sleeve to tug him to the wall across from the stairs. "It's a map!" he said.

Shawn looked at the wall. It was a map of the house, one of those kinds that had the little red arrow that said 'you are here.' "Is this place for real?" Shawn asked. "When did we end up at Arden Fair?"

"Quiet, Shawn," Gus said. "Look for the exit!"

"I think the exit is the giant front door right there," Shawn said, pointing a few feet away. "No, what we want is the kitchen."

"I want to keep the exit in sight, Shawn!" Gus said. "And it's almost ten at night, what would she be doing in the kitchen?"

"Eveline said she was very upset about Harvey's death," Shawn said. "I doubt she'd want to be locked away alone in her room, and there's probably not that many areas in the house open to her."

"It looks like it's right down that hall. You're going first," he said, shoving Shawn in front of him.

"Okay, but that means you have to go last," Shawn said.

"Don't remind me!" he snapped. "If I die, Shawn, I'm going to haunt you, you know that, right?"

"Like Patrick Swayze in Ghost?" Shawn asked.

"Like Kathleen Mackey in Gothika," Gus said.

"That's a little obscure, I would have gone with the creepy girl from The Ring, personally," Shawn said. "You'd get more widespread recognition."

"You're the only one here," Gus said. "And you've seen Gothika like eighty times."

"Can you blame me, Gus?" Shawn said. "Halle Berry, wet. Enough said."

"You know that's right," Gus agreed. "But I didn't think Halle Berry was your type."

"Well, it's got Robert Downey Jr., too. I'm an equal opportunity ogle-er," Shawn said.

"It's down here," Gus said, grabbing Shawn to keep him in front of him like a shield. "You go first."

"I thought we were alternating?" Shawn said.

"I changed my mind!" Gus said.

Shawn rolled his eyes and pushed his way into the kitchen. The lights inside were already on, and Shawn scanned the room. There were bowls of chocolate pudding covering almost every surface, and a young woman in her early twenties was sitting cross-legged on the only empty space left on the counter, stirring like mad. She looked up when they walked in, and her eyes were a little wild.

Shawn pulled to a stop, and Gus slammed into his back. "Sani, right?" Shawn said cautiously. "Shawn Spencer. This is my partner Winston Zeddmore. Eveline called us in to help."

Sani had her long brown hair pulled back in a bun, but most of it had come loose to fall around her face, and she had cocoa powder down the front of her dress and in a streak across her forehead. "Oh, hi!" she said, smiling brightly. "Yes, I'm Sani. Do you want some pudding?"

Shawn glanced around. "Are you sure there's enough?" he asked wryly.

"Oh, plenty! I can't stop making it, I've been making it since three o'clock," she said. "It makes me feel better. Please, sit down!"

Gus and Shawn sat down at the barstools at the counter, and Sani went to the cupboard to pull down two bowls. She dished them up the chocolate pudding before climbing back up to sit on the counter. "I'm glad you're here," she said. "You're some kind of psychic, right? I think I read about you in the papers, except I thought your partner was named Bruton Gaster?"

"It's Burton Guster," Gus said quickly.

"Oh, well, what happened to him?" she asked.

"We don't like to talk about that," Shawn told her, before Gus could intercede. "It's just me and Winston here now."

"So what are you here to do exactly?" Sani asked.

"We're looking into Harvey's death, as well as the attempts on Eveline's life," Shawn said. "Would you mind answering a few questions for us?"

"Sure," she said. "I'm grateful the company, actually." She pulled the wooden spoon from the bowl and absentmindedly started licking the pudding off. Gus made a face and pushed his own bowl away from him.

Shawn brought a hand to his head. "I'm sensing a deep connection between you and Harvey," he said. "He and his wife have separate rooms, I can see you going into his room late at night—"

"I brought him tea sometimes," Sani said, leaning forward. "Is that what you see?"

"No, not exactly," Shawn said, his train of thought derailing. "You were…yes, I see it now! You were sleeping with him."

"Ew, gross," she said, pushing away from him. "He was like seventy-five."

"He was fifty-one," Gus said.

"Well, that's kind of the same thing, isn't it?" she asked. "I wouldn't ever have slept with him. Not for a million dollars."

"But Eveline told us how upset you were," Shawn protested.

Sani froze, her hand tightly gripping the spoon. "I'd never found a dead body before, that's all, no one likes to see a dead body."

"She's got a point there," Gus said.

"But that's not what it was," Shawn said. "You're hiding something."

"I saw her," Sani said after a moment. "I saw her standing over the body."

"Eveline?" Gus asked, getting to his feet.

Sani shook her head. "No, the ghost," Sani said. "She haunts this place. She wants to kill us all."

"I thought Harvey Graves was the ghost?" Shawn asked.

"That's what Mrs. Graves says, but she's wrong," Sani said. "This ghost has been here since I started working here, but they wouldn't ever believe me. Mr. Graves was the first victim, that's all. I saw her with my own eyes."

"Why didn't you tell anyone this?" Gus asked. "If you saw the murderer—"

"But I didn't, Mr. Zeddmore, what I saw was a ghost, that's the whole problem," Sani said. "She was standing there looking down at the body, but it was dark, she was wearing this torn white dress. I looked away for a second and when I looked back she was gone. It wasn't the first time I saw her, you understand. I've seen her before. This is a mad place. I'm leaving as soon as I find somewhere else."

Shawn got to his feet with a frown. "Well thank you for your help, Sani," he said. "If we have any more questions—"

"You know where to find me," she said. "I'm going to start making some butterscotch pudding now. I don't have enough of that."

"Right. Well, you have fun with that," Shawn said, before tugging Gus back out into the hall.

Gus looked disturbed. "Do I sound like that?" he asked. "I mean, I don't act like that right?"

"Not at all," Shawn said easily. "She's handling things much better than you."

Gus glared at him. "You can joke, but I think you owe me an apology, don't you?"

"For what?" Shawn asked.

"It _is_ a ghost, after all," Gus said.

"That's all you took away from that conversation?" Shawn asked. "All this does is take Sani off my suspects list. So it's back to the butler. Yes. The butler did it."

"Stop saying that," Gus said. "You just like saying 'the butler did it.' You haven't got any evidence."

"Since when have I needed evidence to leap to a conclusion?" Shawn demanded.

"I think you should think real hard about what she told us, because if she's right we could be dealing with more than one ghost. This is like a supernatural epicenter," Gus said. "Oh my god, maybe we're on a Hellmouth!"

"That's it, I'm changing the parental controls on your television," Shawn said. "You're no longer allowed to watch anything but cartoons. Wait. Scratch that. I wouldn't want you to start drawing tunnels on walls and then running into them. Let's just cut out the TV altogether."

"You need to take this seriously, Shawn," Gus snapped.

"You're the one comparing our situation to that of the residents of Sunnydale, and I'm not taking this seriously?" Shawn asked. Gus opened his mouth to protest, and Shawn's phone started ringing again, blaring out _when I feel down, I want you above me—_

Gus grabbed Shawn's phone before he could answer it and looked down at the caller ID. "Lassiter? This is the ringtone you have for Lassiter?"

"Well, it was hardly going to be Henry, was it?" Shawn demanded, trying to grab his phone back. "This could be important, Gus! Lassie's outside watching the place."

"Lassiter's here?" Gus demanded. "What the hell, Shawn, what happened to all that, we're partners, Gus, it's you and me, Gus?"

"Nothing has changed, it's just us in here, just like old times," Shawn said.

"No, it's not," Gus snapped. "And I can't believe you made your Lassiter ringtone _I Touch Myself_. Could you be more obvious? And you thought your dad wasn't going to find out?"

"But I've had this ringtone for Lassie for months!" Shawn protested. "You're the only one that thinks there's some hidden meaning to it."

"The meaning's not exactly hidden," Gus snapped. "That's my whole point."

"Okay, come on then," Shawn said. "Let's have this out."

"Have what out?" Gus demanded.

"You've been acting strangely since I told you Lassie and I were together," Shawn snapped.

"This has nothing to do with that, I always act strangely," Gus protested hotly. Gus and Shawn both paused as they replayed what he had said. "That's not what I meant."

"I know you, Gus, and you've always been the one that's in a relationship," Shawn said. "It's always been me that ends up the third wheel. And you can't stand it the other way around, can you?"

"Shawn—"

"You know what, whatever, stay here, get your six hours of sleep, I don't care," Shawn said, grabbing his phone from him. He glanced down at it, but Lassiter had given up and the screen announced one missed call. "I'm going to go investigate a murder."

"Shawn!" Gus snapped, but Shawn ignored him and started down the hall.

He thought about calling Lassiter back, but he wanted a moment to clear his head. He looked behind him, but Gus hadn't followed him. Gus had probably taken this as an opportunity to get in his car and leave Shawn here. Shawn didn't know if he'd blame for that or not.

The lights kept coming on as he went down the hall, but the ones behind him kept going back out. There were portraits framed on the walls of both sides, old paintings of people that all had the last name of Graves. Shawn thought it strange that so far he hadn't come across a single door.

He bit his lip, and closed his eyes, picturing the map of the house that Gus had found in his mind. He overlaid what he knew of the house over the map, and realized that this hall wasn't on it.

One of the lights snapped on in the hall about twenty feet down from him, and Shawn squinted down to see what had set it off. A woman in a torn white dress was standing there half lit, blonde hair loose and falling down to cover most of her face.

Shawn swallowed and then stepped forward cautiously. "Hello?" he said quietly. She turned the corner the moment he spoke, and Shawn took off running after her. "Hey, wait!"

Before Shawn could reach her the light snapped back off. He turned the corner to follow her, but that whole hallway was dark and he couldn't make anything out. He kept running after her anyway, and he was halfway down the hall when he realized it was pitch black—none of the motion sensor lights had activated in this hallway, and the ones he'd left behind had gone out.

Shawn leaned down with his hands on his knees to catch his breath, and then cautiously started heading back. He felt his way along the hall, and pulled out his cellphone, using the light from the display screen to light the way. Then he dialed Lassiter.

"Shawn, where the hell are you?" Lassiter yelled. "I've been trying to call you."

"Yeah, sorry about that," Shawn said. "Gus and I were fighting."

"Where are you? What's going on?" Lassiter asked.

"Nothing, nothing, I'm fine," Shawn said. "Lassiter, I need to know how Harvey's sister died."

"Harvey Graves didn't have a sister," Lassiter said.

"Holly Graves," Shawn said. "You don't find anything on a Holly? A death? It would have been about fifteen years ago."

"Sorry, Shawn, no," Lassiter said. "I went through this guy's whole life. He was definitely an only child. Why do you ask?"

"Because I just saw her," Shawn said dazedly, dropping his hand with the phone down at his side as he ended the call.


	4. I See Not So Dead People

Shawn took a deep breath, putting one hand on the wall. The LCD screen of his phone was only lighting a small circular area around him, spanning all of half a foot, and his battery was flickering, clutching desperately to its last bar.

He was going to have to go back for reinforcements. A flashlight and maybe Sani, because she would probably be better back-up than Gus.

As though summoned by thought, Gus appeared at the end of the hall, backlit like some kind of avenging angel, arms crossed and glaring. "What the hell are you doing down there in the dark, Shawn?" he snapped.

Shawn was at a loss for a response, having not realized that the next working motion sensor light was all of three feet in front of him. "I'm investigating," he said defensively, "which is more than can be said of you."

Shawn's cellphone light flickered and went out as the battery finally gave out, and he snapped it shut and stuck it in his pocket before walking over to join Gus.

"I came all the way down this spooky hallway to find you," Gus snapped. "You're the one that flounced off in a huff."

"I do not flounce," Shawn said. "I wouldn't even know how to flounce. Sometimes I skip, but only rarely. I might do a little hopscotch, a little shimmy, but never a flounce."

"You flounced, Shawn," Gus said firmly. "What is wrong with you?"

"What's wrong with me?" Shawn demanded. "What's wrong with you? Why does my relationship with Lassiter bother you so much?"

"I'm not doing this with you again," Gus said.

"No, you don't get to do that," Shawn said. "Just tell me what—"

"It's because he's a guy!" Gus shouted.

Shawn looked like he'd been struck. "Wow, really? I expect better of you, Gus. And anyway, you should be the last person to judge anyone's sexuality. 95% of your wardrobe is pastel."

"No, it's not—" Gus looked frustrated. "I don't care that he's a guy. It's just that, if you just had a girlfriend, she'd be dragging you to chick flicks and the opera, and you'd have to come with me to do guy stuff. But it's Lassiter. So you don't need me to do guy stuff anymore."

"Is that what you're worried about, really?" Shawn asked. "Gus, that's ridiculous! Lassiter wants me to do stuff with him that I don't want to all the time! He watches the History Channel and movies about the old west, and he wants me to go with him to a museum! You know how I feel about museums after I saw that movie. I don't even go visit Zippy anymore."

"Okay, sidebar," Gus said. "How is it that you don't believe in ghosts, but you still think _Night at the Museum_ was a documentary?"

"I know it's not a _documentary_, Gus, I am aware that Owen Wilson is life size," Shawn said. "But it's a scary movie! Little plastic figures that come to life, and have swords, and guns! It was like Chucky all over again! Museums are creepy! You should know, you won't even go in the Egyptian room."

"That's completely different!" Gus protested. "My concerns are entirely legitimate."

"Whatever, un-sidebar," Shawn said. "The point here is that you don't have anything to worry about! We can still do guy stuff together. We can even still do chick stuff together. I know how much you're looking forward to _All About Steve._"

"That isn't a chick movie, Shawn!" Gus said. "Lots of guys want to see that movie."

Shawn thought about it. "No, I'm pretty sure it's just you, but I'll go with you anyway. This is what I'm saying—we're best friends, Gus, that isn't going to change."

"Do you mean that?" Gus demanded.

"Of course!" Shawn said. "You're like family, Gus. And you can't get rid of family. My father is proof of that."

Gus broke out into a grin and lunged forward, grabbing Shawn in fierce a tackle hug. "I am happy for you," he said. "I think you're nuts for dating Lassiter, but I just want you to be happy, so if you're happy, I'm happy."

"Right now I'm not so much happy as about to die of asphyxiation. Want to let up a little?" Shawn said, and Gus let him go, stepping back sheepishly.

"What are you two doing here?" a hoarse voice demanded. Shawn and Gus spun around to see the butler standing there, still in his tuxedo, holding a candle. "This area is off limits. You're to stay away from the East Wing."

Shawn narrowed his eyes, taking a step back and bumping into Gus. "No worries," he said. "We were lost. We're heading back right now."

"See that you do," Aldis said, before turning and heading down the hall, the candlelight floating ahead of him.

"Okay, maybe you're right, maybe he did do it," Gus said. "He's creeping me right out. Let's go back, Shawn."

"We can't head back now," Shawn protested.

"The lights are broken in this hallway or something, we'll come back in the morning," Gus said.

"You know I can't stand it when people tell me not to go somewhere," Shawn said. "It's kind of like the opposite of when people tell me to go somewhere."

"It's exactly the opposite of that," Gus said.

"No, I mean, if someone tells me to do something, I don't want to, and if they tell me not to, I want to," Shawn said.

"I don't want you to give me your Nintendo DS," Gus said.

Shawn bit the inside of his cheek in thought. "I probably shouldn't have told you that about myself."

"I don't want to go back where it's bright and warm and safe," Gus said.

"Oh, stop it," Shawn said. "It doesn't count when you do it anyway. We've got to go find out what he's hiding."

"I'm not going down there, Shawn," he said.

"Take out your cellphone," Shawn said. "We can use the light on it. It'll be fine."

"Use yours," Gus said.

"Mine died, come on, Gus! This could break the whole case wide open," Shawn said. "Let's go."

"I don't know why I keep letting myself get talked into these things," Gus said, as he pulled out his cellphone and turned on the display light. He looked down the hallway with narrowed eyes, and Shawn gave him a push to start him moving. "What if the butler is hiding there in wait? What if he is the killer?"

"Don't worry about him," Shawn said. "It's not him we're looking for. It's Holly. I may have seen her wandering around creepily."

"Holly?" Gus said. "The dead sister? You think there is a ghost now? Oh my god. If even you believe it, then there really is a ghost. We need salt. We need an EMF. We need—"

"I did not see a ghost," Shawn interrupted. "I saw a person that is supposed to be dead but obviously isn't dead because I saw them."

"You saw a ghost," Gus said. "You're taking me down a dark hallway looking for a ghost? Have you gone mad?"

"She's only dead allegedly," Shawn said, and gave Gus another push. The lights behind them had automatically turned off again, a power-saving technique that Gus had appreciated at first but was starting to resent. The light from his cellphone did not extend very far.

"These pictures are weird," Gus said, eyeing the portraits that lined the hall. "I feel like I'm taking the Haunted Mansion tour at Disneyland."

"That's good, go to a happy place," Shawn said.

"I was terrified on that tour, Shawn," Gus said.

"You probably shouldn't admit to that," he said. "Five-year-olds have gone and that tour and not been impressed."

"That's not true, that—" Gus was cut off abruptly as Shawn put a hand over his mouth and covered the light on his cellphone. They saw Aldis, still holding his candle, come out from a door on the left side of the hall, before walking across and entering through another door on the right.

There was a window at the end of the hall, and there was another flash of lightening lit it up as the door clicked shut behind Aldis. Shawn removed his hand from the cellphone and Gus's mouth, and tilted his head towards the recently vacated room.

The lights in the room came on automatically as they entered, and Shawn carefully closed the door behind them. "Harvey's study," Shawn said, glancing around. There were pictures of Holly and Eveline arranged on the shelves holding Harvey's books. Holly looked to be about fifteen in all of them, the same way she'd looked in that portrait that was painted shortly before she supposedly died.

"What are we looking for?" Gus asked.

"Whatever we're not supposed to find," Shawn said.

"That's helpful," he said. "This is just a study, Shawn. There's books and papers."

Shawn frowned as he surveyed the room. Something was bothering him about the dimensions, the way the desk was situated at the back wall. He went to the door and leaned back out into hall for a moment, measuring the distance to the window in his mind before stepping back into the office and closing the door behind him.

"What?" Gus asked.

Shawn ignored him, stepping past him to stare at the back wall. He ran his eyes over the old fraying wallpaper. The background was a dark brown, with a gold-hued almost geometric design overlaid on top, lines crossing vertically and horizontally, interspersed with drawings of leafy vines crawling up and across them.

He looked for any break in the design, any evidence of something off center, but whoever had put it up had known what they were doing. When he finally found the crack it was right at the edge of one of the gold-hued vertical lines, following it up almost seamlessly. It would never be seen unless someone was looking for it.

"Shawn, what are you doing? Are you going to help me look through this stuff or not?" Gus demanded.

Shawn ran a hand over the break in the wall, before stopping where the door handle might have been and applying pressure. He heard a magnetic click, and then the hidden door was opening slowly, creaking like the background sound effects in a made-for-Halloween CD.

"Is that a hidden door?" Gus asked, stepping up behind him. "Did you just find a hidden door?"

"The room wasn't big enough," Shawn said. "It was about four feet too short. I knew there had to be something behind this wall."

Gus gulped. "Are you sure you want to know what it is?" he asked.

Shawn pulled the door open in answer, and stepped inside. No lights came on, but Shawn saw a lamp and clicked it on. The room was only about four feet wide, but it was at least fourteen feet across. A bed lay pushed up against one wall on one side, a pink daisy comforter laid across it, while a dresser was pushed up against the other. There wasn't room for anything else.

"There's no place for anyone to hide in here, I think you're safe," Shawn said. Gus followed him in reluctantly.

Shawn went straight to the dresser. There was a framed picture of a woman he didn't recognize, smiling at the camera. She looked a little like Holly. Shawn was pretty sure the shoulder on the left side, belonging to someone that had been cropped out of the photo, was Harvey's. He turned the picture over and pulled it open to see if there was an inscription on the back of the picture.

There wasn't one, though he had found something else of interest. Shawn set it back down and noticed a pair of pearl earrings sitting beside a velvet red ribbon with a cameo tied to one end. He pocketed the earrings, and then turned back to see what Gus was doing. He had his face half-laid on the bed, and was grunting and muttering to himself.

"What are you doing?" Shawn asked. "Nevermind. Actually, I don't think I want to know."

"I'm looking for—" Gus grinned triumphantly. "Ah ha!" He pulled a diary out from under the mattress.

Shawn frowned at him. "How did you know that would be there?" he asked.

"Please, Joy always kept her diary under her bed," Gus said.

"I didn't know girls really did that," he said. "I thought that was a television myth."

"That's cause you didn't have a sister, Shawn," Gus said.

"No, but I had you," Shawn said. "You were almost like having a sister."

"Please," Gus said. "Like you ever could have found my diary. I had the best hiding place ever."

"You call it a diary, I rest my case," Shawn said. "Anyway, everyone knows you kept it on your bookshelf behind your first edition copy of Ender's Game and your Algebra text book."

Gus froze. "How do you know about that?"

"Are you kidding?" Shawn asked. "I almost had that thing published, it was brilliant. I can recite most of it by heart. January 8th, 1989, Shawn was mean to me today—"

"Stop it," Gus snapped. "I can't believe you read my diary."

"Well, I didn't read all of it," Shawn said. "You were more prolific than Judy Blume."

Gus glared at him. "It was only like twenty pages," he snapped. "If you were going to invade my privacy you could have at least had the decency to read the whole thing."

Shawn took the diary from Gus and pulled at the lock, trying to wedge it open. "It's like trying to get into Tut's tomb," he said, before pulling one hand away, shaking it out and then sticking the tip of a finger in his mouth.

"Give me that," Gus said, ripping it out of his hands. He gripped the front cover with one hand and the back cover with the other, closed his eyes and scrunched up his face, and proceeded to try and pull it open. He moved his head side to side and then gave up, standing up straight and glaring at it.

"That was a very manly display of power," Shawn said. "I'm a little in awe of you."

"Shut up, Shawn," he said. "That lock's made of titanium or something."

"I'm fairly certain it isn't made of titanium," Shawn said. "It has My Little Pony on the cover. Typically twelve-year-old girls don't require that kind of security."

"You couldn't get into it either!" Gus snapped.

Shawn held his hand out. "I'll get it open," he said.

"Yeah right," Gus said, handing it back.

Shawn grabbed it and turned his back on him, wiggling one hand in the air, and whispering, "open sesame!" He spun around, and held the diary out, holding it by one edge of the cover so it sprung open and the pages all went spinning to the other side. "Ta da!"

"What the hell?" Gus said, taking it back. "How did you do that?"

Shawn held up his other hand, and a little gold key dangled from a pink string. "I found the key in the picture frame."

"You had that the whole time?" Gus demanded.

"Yes," Shawn said. "But I didn't want to deprive you of your Herculean efforts. Seriously, I thought you were the master safe-cracker, I thought no lock could stop you."

"It's the simple ones that are surprisingly effective," Gus said defensively.

"I'll be sure to recommend Hasbro to the NSA," Shawn said.

Shawn looked back at the diary, and flipped to the last used page. He started to read it, and Gus pulled it over so he could see it too, nearly slamming his head into Shawn's. "Ow, be careful!" Shawn protested.

"Then move over," he snapped. "I want to see it too!"

Shawn grudgingly held it over so they could both read it:

_May 23, 1994._

_He thinks I don't know what he's planning, but Andie told me. He told Andie to pack and get rid of all my things, to make my room into a study, before __she gets here. Andie waited until he was gone and had my room walled up against the edge, like it wasn't ever there, hidden behind the wall so it'll be waiting for me, our little secret. Andie says not to worry, but Harvey says it's time for me to move on to a better place._

_I don't want to go._

"Oh my god, Shawn, he killed her!" Gus said. "She's is dead, she's the ghost! Oh my god, you saw a real live ghost!"

"Okay, firstly, that doesn't even make any sense, it's an oxymoron," Shawn said. "Secondly, there's no such thing as ghosts. And thirdly, he didn't kill her."

"A better place, Shawn?" Gus snapped.

"Yeah, I don't think the place he sent her was really better," Shawn said, and grabbed a brochure up off the dresser to hand to Gus.

"Acres and Groves?" Gus asked incredulously. "The metal institution that was formed after they closed Wispy Sunny Pines?"

"Yeah, and it gets worse," Shawn said. "I don't think she was his sister either." He held open a birthday card that had been sitting beside the brochure.

On the inside it was signed by Harvey, with love, to daddy's little girl.

"Who signs a card to their kid with their first name?" Gus asked in disbelief. "And who has their daughter committed and tells everyone she's dead?"

"Someone that didn't want the new wife to know about her," Shawn said. "He had this place remodeled to get rid of the traces, claimed Holly was his dead sister, only someone didn't want to just get rid of all her things like she'd never been here."

"You think Harvey Graves didn't even know this room was here?" Gus asked.

"Holly said in the diary that he wanted it all taken away," Shawn said. "Andie must have been in charge of the remodeling, and had a new wall put up, leaving a little space left to keep some of her room."

"That's creepy," Gus said. "No one could live in this room. It's like something out of Edgar Allan Poe, getting walled up in here."

"There's a door, usually in Edgar Allan Poe people walling up other people don't bother with doors," Shawn said. "Creepy though it may be, whoever did this cared about Holly, they couldn't stand the thought of her just being erased."

Shawn paused as he heard a raised voice coming from the hallway, and beside him, Gus went very still. "It's the ghost!" he said nervously.

"Only if she's on testosterone," Shawn said.

"Let's just get out of here," Gus said, tugging Shawn back to the door. "This place gives the willies."

"Yeah, okay, but only if you promise not to say 'the willies' anymore," Shawn said, putting the diary under one arm and reaching out to turn off the lamp. He pressed the door to the room closed behind them, smoothing down the edges of the wallpaper to hide it again.

Gus opened the study door and he and Shawn both stuck their heads out, looking both ways before exiting the room. Gus pulled out his cellphone and started leading the way back down the hall.

He was holding his cellphone in front of him like he was Indiana Jones and it was a torch, which made his very unmanly gasp when the light on his display flickered out extra amusing for Shawn. "The battery died!"

"I did notice," Shawn said.

"Neither of us have cellphones now, Shawn! We have no way to communicate with the outside world!"

"You mean the outside world that's like twenty feet away?" Shawn asked.

"Twenty dark scary feet away," Gus snapped, and latched onto his friend, digging his fingers into his arm.

"What is with your nails?" Shawn demanded, trying to pull out of the death grip that Gus had on his arm. "Are you auditioning to be Edward Scissorhands? Ease up!"

"I can't see anything, Shawn!" Gus snapped. "We're going to die here."

"We're not going to die," Shawn said. "Probably. Most likely we aren't going to die."

"You're not helping," Gus snapped, and then let out a high-pitched scream as a bright light appeared hovering behind them. Shawn spun around and held up a hand to try and make something out, but the light was blinding them both. Gus grabbed Shawn's sleeve and started tugging. "It's the ghost! Run!"

Shawn was about to protest again that it wasn't a ghost, it was probably just a murderer, but meeting a murderer in a dark hallway didn't sound like much fun either so he started after him. He didn't make it very far before an arm slipped around his throat, wet and cold, and pulled him to a sudden stop.

"Shawn!" Gus cried anxiously, as Shawn was pulled backwards. He reached out to try and grab him, missing his leg and clutching onto Shawn's left Kangaroo shoe. "I've got you! Hold on, Shawn!"

Gus flew backwards as the shoe came off in his hands, and they both heard someone give a long-suffering sigh. "Oh for—will you two calm down?" a voice snapped. "It's me."

Shawn slipped out of the grip around his throat. He stepped away to adjust his shirt with forced fastidiousness as it became apparent that the ghost-murderer was only Lassiter, a little wet from the rain, holding a high-powered flashlight. "I knew it was you, obviously," Shawn said. "I was just waiting for Gus to figure it out."

"Don't lie, Shawn! You were just as freaked as I was," Gus said.

"Yeah, well, you're useless as a savior," Shawn said, and grabbed his shoe back from Gus. "If Lassie really had been our murderer I'd be dead. And missing a shoe."

"It's not my fault you don't properly tie your shoes," Gus said.

"They're Velcro!" Shawn protested.

"Well, no one forced you to buy shoes without any laces, did they?" Gus asked. "I hope you've learned your lesson."

Shawn narrowed his eyes and started towards Gus, but Lassiter grabbed him around the waist, spinning him around so he was between them. "Alright, enough!" he snapped. "One of you needs to tell me what's going on, right now."

"Shawn saw a ghost," Gus told Lassiter.

"I did not see a ghost," Shawn corrected. "I saw a person."

"Shawn saw a dead person," Gus told Lassiter.

"Gus, there's no reason to think Holly is really dead," Shawn said. "That's what Harvey told Eveline. It doesn't mean that it's true. He also told Eveline that Holly was his sister. That's what we in the investigative trade call an unreliable source." Shawn turned to Lassiter. "How did you get in here?"

"You call me, tell me you've seen some non-existent dead person, and you thought what? I wouldn't worry?" Lassiter asked. "I found a way in, Shawn. I thought you were in trouble."

"Sorry," Shawn said. "I was going to call you back, but my battery died. How did you know we would be here?"

"I tracked down the butler, he told me he'd sent you back, so naturally I knew you'd still be snooping around here," Lassiter said.

Shawn grinned. "You know me so well," he said. "Were you in the other room?"

"What?" Lassiter asked.

"You came from behind us," Shawn explained. "And we didn't see you when we came out. Were you in the room across the hall?"

"Oh, yeah," Lassiter said. "It's the butler's room."

"He let you in?" Shawn asked. "Were there creepy collages plastered everywhere? Any Edger Allan Poe books? Maybe a How To Build A Wall For Dummies?"

"I didn't stay long," Lassiter said. "I was just asking him where to find you."

"Right," Shawn said. "Well I hope you know you passed up a perfect opportunity to get some dirt on my lead suspect."

"That's your lead suspect?" Lassiter asked, disbelievingly. "He's like a hundred years old."

"What is with this bias against old people all the sudden?" Shawn demanded. "As though they're not just as capable of murder as anyone else. I'm highly offended on their behalf. You and Gus should both be ashamed of yourselves."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. "Come on," he said, ushering them both down the hall.

The three of them headed back to the kitchen. Sani had finally left for bed, but she had left pudding chaos in her wake. There were pudding filled bowls littering most of the surfaces, chocolate powder sprinkled all over the floor. When Shawn opened the fridge, it was pudding top to bottom shelf.

"Pudding, anyone?" he asked. He turned back around to find Gus and Lassiter in some weird kind of face-off. Lassiter looked as confused about it as Shawn, but Gus had on his _don't mess me with me_ face, which really was quite an impressive feat for someone with such a high-pitched scream. "What? No one likes pudding?"

"I think it's time Lassiter and I had a talk," Gus said. "Seeing as how this thing between the two of you looks like it's getting serious."

"What talk?" Shawn asked.

"The best friend, significant other talk," Gus explained. "To see where we stand."

Lassiter looked at Shawn. "Do you have any idea what he's talking about?"

Shawn shrugged, grabbed a spoon, and started eating a bowl of pudding.

"I know you've always felt threatened by me," Gus told Lassiter, his eyes wide and earnest.

"Guster, I can tell you in all honesty, that I've never been even remotely threatened by you," Lassiter said.

Gus smiled wryly. "Ri-ight," he said. "Of course not, detective, I've got you." He winked for effect, and Lassiter opened his mouth to protest.

Shawn grabbed onto his arm before he could. "Gus has an eye twitch," he whispered. "Best you don't point it out."

Lassiter glanced over at him warily, but he had lost his chance to interrupt. Gus had started talking again. "Shawn and I, see, we're a package deal. We're partners. We solve crime together. We have movie nights on Tuesdays and Thursdays—"

"All the days that start with T, actually," Shawn said helpfully.

"Exactly. On T-days, we have movie nights. And we have video game marathons on Mondays. But you can have him Wednesdays and Fridays and the weekends, because honestly, I could use the break," Gus said.

"Hey!" Shawn protested.

"Are we arranging shared custody?" Lassiter asked in disbelief.

Gus thought about it, and then nodded. "Yeah, I think we are. Maybe we should put this down in writing?"

"There will be no writing anything down," Shawn said quickly. "You know binding contracts freak me out."

"Okay, it'll be an oral contract, then," Gus said, and paid no attention to Shawn's disturbed glance. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'll be leaving."

"Where are you going?" Shawn demanded.

"It's Saturday, Shawn," Gus said. "That means you're Lassiter's problem now. I'm going home to get some sleep."

"But you're going to miss out on everything!" Shawn protested.

"Sorry, Shawn," Gus said. "I need my six hours of sleep, and I can't take this stress. Call me in the morning."

"Gus!" Shawn called, but Gus was out the door. He turned to Lassiter with a pout. "Can you believe that?"

Lassiter sits on the barstool beside him and rests his head on the counter. "Yes, I told you Guster was the only one with sense," he said. "Six hours of sleep sounds pretty good."

Shawn sighed. "What is it with you people? You act like you've never stayed up all night before."

"I don't usually," Lassiter said. "Sometimes on a big case."

"This case is big, and we still have lots of work to do," Shawn said.

"You're eating pudding," Lassiter said, eyeing him dubiously.

Shawn licked the spoon clean. "It's all part of my process," he explained. He finished off the bowl of pudding and then jumped to his feet. "Okay, let's—" He broke off as he realized Lassiter had fallen asleep, his head resting on his crossed arms, the toes of his shoes braced against the tile floor.

Shawn sighed. He wasn't about to leave Lassiter asleep here with the undead on the loose, and he didn't want to wake him up. He moved quietly around the kitchen, searching for something to keep him occupied, and grinned when he saw the roll of butcher paper leaning against the counter.

He slid it to the floor and rolled it open, laying a long piece of paper parallel to the counter. He found a box of markers in one of the drawers, and pulled the cap off the blue one with his teeth before getting to work.

He paused with the marker held against the paper and closed his eyes for a moment before opening them and drawing the lines from memory, labeling everything he recognized and leaving the rest blank. He pulled out a red pen next, tracing along the edges and moving to the side, nearly running off the edge of the paper.

He was nearly finished when he felt he was being watched, and he glanced up to see Lassiter was awake. "What are you doing?" Lassiter asked quietly.

"Drawing a map," Shawn said. "The one they have is wrong."

Lassiter stood from the stool and then kneeled beside Shawn, frowning at what he saw. It was an intricate blueprint of the house. He'd seen the map in the entryway when he came in, and this seemed to match it almost exactly from what he could recall.

"See this," Shawn said, pointing to the red marks on the map, a hallway that went down from the entryway and ended at two rooms. "It isn't on the official guide they have tacked up out there. Everything in red is what they didn't bother to put on the map."

"You did this from memory?" Lassiter asked quietly, turning to look at Shawn with something like disbelief. Since he learned the truth, Lassiter sometimes thought the psychic thing was the easier story to believe. "And the rest just from walking through the halls?"

Shawn nodded. "It's not like it's to scale or anything," he said, though Lassiter noticed that the lines all seemed perfectly straight, as though he'd drawn them with a ruler and not by sight. Shawn pointed to a small section lined off from the study. "This is where we found the hidden room."

"What hidden room?" Lassiter asked.

Shawn tossed Lassiter the diary. "Part of his daughter's old room, they had a wall built up around it when Harvey wanted it gone," he said. "Sent her off to an institution far as we can tell, though she came home recently. I saw her earlier. She's Gus's ghost."

"Daughter?" Lassiter asked.

"Oh, yeah, you were right that he doesn't have a sister," Shawn explained. "Holly Graves was his daughter, and she isn't dead."

Lassiter glanced through the diary, before looking back at the map. "What else is down there?" he asked.

"Aldis's room, which you saw, and Harvey's study," Shawn said. "Maybe it's not on the map because Harvey wanted to keep his office private. Maybe it's because someone had his daughter locked up in the walls."

"Don't you think someone would have noticed?" Lassiter asked.

"People did notice," Shawn said. "It's just that they all thought she was a ghost."

Lassiter frowned as Shawn ripped the paper off the roll, before spreading out a new piece. "What are you doing now?" he asked.

"I like to make lists," Shawn said.

"Huh. That's what we do, too," Lassiter said, leaning over him. He looked at what Shawn was doing. "Actually, that's nothing like what we do. What is that supposed to be?"

"I write in code," Shawn said defensively. "Well, pictograms, anyway. I need to look again at my suspects. I feel like I'm in the middle of a rousing game of Clue. We've got the maid in the kitchen with pudding, the butler in the hall with a candlestick, the widow in the upstairs bedroom with the sleeping pills. The ghost in the hidden room."

Shawn squinted at his paper, drawing everything he described in stick-figure style. "And then we've got Harvey," Shawn said. "An expert swimmer who drowned in a seven foot pool."

"They're all good suspects," Lassiter said. "It could have been any of them."

"Except I don't think it was any of them," Shawn said.

"I thought you were blaming it on the butler?" Lassiter asked.

"Oh, he's definitely hiding something," Shawn said. "But I don't think he killed anyone, and Holly was the one spotted at the scene of the crime."

"What are you talking about? We haven't heard anything about that," Lassiter said.

"Sani didn't tell the police," Shawn said. "She thought she saw an apparition. She didn't think anyone would believe her."

"So it's obviously Holly then," Lassiter said. "What's the problem?"

"It's obvious," Shawn said. "That's the problem."

Lassiter rolled his eyes. He settled down on the floor and paged through the diary for awhile before laying out and falling asleep beside Shawn. Shawn couldn't sleep, even if someone didn't need to stay on watch, so he laid out another strip of butcher paper and started to write down all he knew.

**Eveline**

Motive: Harvey was mean. Also lots of money.

Means: The pills were hers.

Defense: Probably didn't use a tripwire on herself. Or try to choke herself.

**The Butler**

Motive: Harvey was mean. Wanted the East Wing to himself.

Means: Access to Eveline's pills, trusted by Harvey.

Defense: Really really old.

**Sani**

Motive: Thought Harvey was gross. And mean.

Means: Access to pills and kitchen, could have slipped it in a drink.

Defense: Would not have had time to make so much pudding if plotting murders.

**Holly**

Motive: Harvey was really mean. Also, she's crazy.

Means: She can make her way through the house unnoticed. Access to everything.

Defense: She saved the card her father gave her. Lives in a wall. Obviously does not care about material gains.

It could have been any of them, but that didn't mean it had to be one of them.

Shawn had the worst feeling he'd left someone off the list.


	5. Silly Psychic Sleep is for Lassies

Note: We are nearing the end! Two more parts should do it, I think, three at the most! But I'm trying to at least have this done before Halloween, as it's kind of unintentionally a Halloween ghost story minus the ghosts.

* * *

Lassiter's head hit the tile floor with a loud crack, and he jerked awake, reaching instinctively for the butt of his gun. "Wha—what happened?"

Shawn was sitting cross-legged beside him, unconcerned. He was drawing what looked like Casper on a new stretch of paper with blue marker. "Oh, yeah, sorry about that," he said. "You were laying on my leg, and while very cute, I started to lose all feeling at about 4:00 AM and I was beginning to worry they'd have to amputate."

"You shoved me off?" Lassiter asked indignantly, pulling his shirt up to look at his stomach. "I think I have a gun indentation in my stomach."

Shawn paused, and glanced up. "Note to self: don't let Lassiter sleep with firearms down his pants. Could very well put an end to my new favorite pastime."

Lassiter turned to glare at him, and then seemed to notice the state of the floor. It was covered almost completely with paper, most of the writing on it nonsensical, including what appeared to be a three-page treatise on why the Pineapple Toss should be included in the Olympics.

"Have you been at this all night?" Lassiter asked incredulously.

"You were falling asleep on me like you had late onset narcolepsy, someone had to stand watch," Shawn told him.

"What is all this?" Lassiter asked.

"I'm organizing my thoughts," Shawn said.

"I'm sure I've said this before," Lassiter said, "but your mind is a scary place, isn't it?"

Shawn was about to respond when Lassiter took the marker from him, snapping the cap back on. "Hey!" he protested.

"Don't you think you should clean this up before someone comes in and sees it?" Lassiter asked.

"Honestly, I think it's an improvement over last night," Shawn said. "It looked like Count Chocula threw up in here."

Lassiter just sighed and started carefully gathering the papers together. More than one seemed to have bonded to the floor with sticky chocolate pudding. Shawn had gotten to his feet beside him, and he reached down to grab everything together in one frenzied move, crumbling the paper carelessly and then pushing it into the trashcan.

Lassiter frowned. "I thought that was your version of an evidence log?" he asked.

Shawn dusted his hands off and grinned. "Eidetic memory, remember?" he pointed to his head. "This is my evidence log. The coloring is just for fun."

Lassiter rolled his eyes and glanced down at his watch. "It's only about five thirty," he said. "We should go to my place and try and get some sleep."

"You've been sleeping all night," Shawn protested. "And I'm fine. We need to keep working."

"Laying on a hard kitchen floor with a gun digging into my stomach isn't exactly the most refreshing night's sleep I've ever had," Lassiter said. "And I thought you were over your insomnia."

"You don't get over insomnia," Shawn said. "Sometimes you have it and sometimes you don't, but it's not like there's a cure. Unless you count sleeping pills."

"Which you refuse to take," Lassiter said.

"You won't take them either," Shawn said.

"Why would I take them? I have no trouble sleeping," Lassiter said.

"Okay, I can't argue with that," Shawn agreed. "You're kind of like one those little toy dolls, your eyes shut when you lay down, open again when you sit up. It's really quite impressive."

"I've learned to grab sleep where I can," Lassiter said defensively. "But I've trained myself to wake at the slightest noise."

"Really," Shawn said. "It's funny you didn't wake up at all last night then, not even during my lovely rendition of _Everybody Wants To Rule The World_."

"Yeah, well, I've also trained myself to tune you out," Lassiter said. "So there's a conflict."

Shawn grinned, about to voice his rejoinder, when he heard the sound of clicking heels. Eveline walked into the room, apparently unconcerned with all the pudding, and made a beeline for the coffee machine. She was wearing pink high heels and another overpriced dress. This morning though, her make-up was perfect.

Once she had the coffee started, she finally glanced over at them. "Oh, Mr. Oats! I didn't realize you were here," she said.

Lassiter opened his mouth to let her know that wasn't his name, but Shawn beat him to the punch. "Please, Eveline, call him Holland," he said. "There's no need for formalities between us."

Lassiter turned to glare at him, but Eveline just gave a slight smile, one that had Lassiter wondering if she knew very well it wasn't his name. "Holland, then," she said. "Where is Gus?"

"He's pursuing other leads," Shawn said. "How did you sleep?"

"Better than usual, thank you," she said. "It was very kind of you to stay here. Did you…encounter any spirits?"

"Not exactly," he said, reaching deep into his pocket. He stepped in front of Eveline, holding out his hand, the pearl earrings resting on his palm. "But I think these belong to you?"

"My earrings!" she said happily, taking them from him. "Where did you find them?"

"In your step daughter's room," Shawn said.

Eveline frowned. "I don't have a step daughter," she said.

"You do, actually," Shawn said. "Her name is Holly Graves."

Eveline sighed, leaning against the counter. "Harvey was even more of a bastard than I've been giving him credit for, wasn't he?" she asked quietly.

"Pretty much," Shawn said. "We found her room hidden behind the wall in his study. Do you know why that part of the house wasn't included on the map?"

"I never even noticed it wasn't," she said, shaking her head. "Harvey's study is pretty much all that's down there, I never spend any time on that side of the house."

"But Aldis does, do you know why?" Shawn asked.

Eveline shrugged. "He's free to go wherever he wants, he choose to sleep in the spare room down there," she said. "He asked if he could use Harvey's study after he died, and I said he could. I don't want anything to do with it myself."

"And you had no idea Harvey might have had a daughter?" Shawn asked. "You never received any strange phone calls, anything like that?"

Eveline turned to look at him sharply. "You're acting as though she isn't dead," she said.

"That's because I don't think she is," Shawn said. "I don't think your problem has anything to do with ghosts."

Eveline placed a hand over her mouth and sat heavily on one of the barstools. "This is all too much," she said. "Are you sure it's not Harvey?"

"Your husband is dead," Lassiter told her firmly. "I saw him myself."

Eveline nodded, but still turned to look at Shawn. "And he's…gone? He's really gone?"

"Your house is 100% ghost-free," Shawn told her. "But that doesn't mean it's safe. Are you sure you can't tell us anything else about Holly?"

"No, I had no idea about any of this." Eveline sighed. "You should talk to Aldis. He knows all of Harvey's dirty little secrets."

Shawn nodded. "Okay, we will," he assured her. "Then we're going to have to go check some things out. You need to be careful, you might want to get out of the house for awhile."

"You should stay with a friend," Lassiter told her. "Or at a hotel."

Eveline shook her head. "This is my home," she said. "I wasn't going to let a ghost drive me out of it, and this isn't any different."

"This is different because this threat is real," Lassiter snapped.

Shawn stepped in front of him. "What he means is, ghosts are ethereal, the damage they can do is limited," he said. "Someone flesh and blood doesn't have that kind of limitation."

"Mrs. Graves," Lassiter interrupted. "If you don't listen to our advice, we can't protect you."

"I understand that," Eveline said. "I'll be careful." She walked over to the intercom. "Aldis, Mr. Spencer and Mr. Oats would like a word with you. Please meet them in the entry way."

"Thank you," Lassiter said.

"Be careful," Shawn told her. "The good news is that the killer only seems to strike at night, and with any luck, we'll have caught them by then."

Eveline nodded. "I'll be okay," she said. "It was the thought of Harvey being here that was scaring me. Anything else I can handle. Even a stepdaughter I didn't know I had. Anyway, I always said I'd like to have met her."

Lassiter frowned as he and Shawn went to meet Aldis. "She should be more careful what she wishes for," he said.

"You don't know it's Holly," Shawn said. "Innocent until proven guilty. Isn't that a cop rule?"

"No," Lassiter said dryly. "That's a lawyer rule. We have to look at everyone like they're guilty until they're proven innocent."

"Well, that explains our first meeting," Shawn said.

Lassiter frowned. "That's not fair," he snapped.

"And all of our subsequent meetings," Shawn continued. "And all of your meetings with anyone else ever."

"What are you trying to say?" Lassiter demanded.

"You're kind of a suspicious person," Shawn said. "It's okay. I still love you. Here, have a hug!"

Lassiter held out his hand, placing it over Shawn's face to hold him back. "I am not a suspicious person," he said. "And no hugging in public. Someone could be watching."

Shawn stuck out his tongue, and Lassiter pulled his hand away in surprise. Shawn grinned at him. "You think we're being watched, but you're not suspicious?"

"Sirs," Aldis said dryly.

Shawn glanced over at him. "Huh," he said, before turning to Lassiter. "What do you know? You were right. We were totally being watched."

Lassiter pushed past him in irritation. "We have some questions for you," he said. "Where were you on the night of Harvey's death?"

"I was asleep in my room," Aldis said.

"Of course you were," Shawn said, deciding to take up the role of 'good cop.' "But where was Holly?"

Aldis' lips twitched slightly, but that was all that gave him away. "She was in the picture above the fireplace," he said. "Since her death that's the only place she can be found."

"Then who was checked into Acres and Groves?" Shawn asked.

"I'm sure I don't know, sir," Aldis said. "I imagine a great number of people have been."

"And I'm sure you know nothing about the room hidden in Harvey's study, either?" Lassiter demanded.

"As far as I know the only room in Mr. Graves' study is Mr. Graves study," Aldis said. "If there is nothing else, please, allow me to get the door for you." Aldis walked to the door, and generously held it open for them.

Shawn knew that was his fancy, upper class way of saying, don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out. He only let him get away with it because he had other places to be, other people to question that may actually even tell him the truth.

He grabbed Lassiter by the sleeve and tugged him along. "See you again soon," Shawn called behind him, and Aldis closed the door in his face.

"What was that about?" Lassiter demanded. "You didn't get him to talk at all. We need to go back in there, he knows something."

"Of course he does," Shawn said. "But he's not going to _tell_ us, so we might as well not waste our time. What we need to do is go to Acres and Groves."

"What's so important about Acres and Groves?" Lassiter asked. "Isn't it a mental hospital?"

"Yes, and possibly it's where Holly's really been since her tragic 'death,'" Shawn said.

Lassiter ran a hand over his face and then looked at Shawn with narrowed eyes. "You haven't fallen off the wagon, have you?" he asked. "You look pretty awake."

Shawn rolled his eyes. "No, I've been Red Bull free all week," he said. "Scout's honor."

"Were you really a scout?" Lassiter asked.

"Have you met my father?" Shawn asked. "I was a Cub Scout, a Boy Scout, a Rover Scout, an Air Scout, a Sea Scout. Take your pick. Never more than a week for any one of them, mind you, but they still count. I have the badges and everything." Shawn paused, and placed a hand to his heart. "Scout's honor."

"I don't know why I'm surprised," Lassiter said, before giving him a push towards the car, which was still parked on the other side of the fence.

Shawn glanced up at the tall fence. "How did you get in here?" he asked. "Did you scale the gate?"

"Yes," Lassiter said, "I don't have the code to open it, and it's not that high. You don't think you can manage it?" Lassiter smugly blew on his hands, and pulled himself up the first half of the gate.

Shawn watched him for a moment, and then punched the code into the control box beside the fence. It started to open with a loud creak, taking Lassiter with it. Shawn waved happily as he moved along the road until he was hovering over the lawn.

"Damn it, Spencer," Lassiter snapped, before dropping to the ground. "How did you know the code?"

Shawn heaved a sigh as Lassiter walked over to join him. "I miss the old days when I didn't have to explain myself," he said. "I could just say, I'm psychic! And then leave it at that. You want to take the magic out of everything."

"How, Spencer?" Lassiter demanded.

"It's Holly's birthday," Shawn said. "I found a birthday card in her room and it was dated in the corner. Harvey had guilt issues about locking up his kid that resulted in him putting her picture everywhere. It seemed to follow that he'd set her birthday up as the code, that's probably how she got in. My dad uses my birthday on his safe, too. It's just lucky for him that I have no interest in his collector's edition fishing lures."

"And you couldn't have mentioned that a few moments before?" Lassiter asked.

"I didn't know it would work," Shawn said, as Lassiter moved to the driver's side of his car. "It could have just as easily failed spectacularly, and I would have had to climb that gate right along side you."

Shawn dropped into the passenger seat and pulled open the glove box. He frowned. "You ate all of the Red Vines? Really?" he asked. "That was going to be my breakfast. Maybe we should go back for more pudding."

Lassiter put the car in drive without bothering to respond to that. "What we're doing," he said, "is going to my place to get in bed."

"I know I'm really hard to resist," Shawn said, "but we're in the middle of a murder investigation, this is hardly the time for a booty call."

"To sleep, Spencer," Lassiter said.

"You've reverted back to calling me Spencer," Shawn said. "It's Shawn, remember?"

"You still call me Lassiter," Lassiter said. "Or Lassie, which is worse."

"Carl—Carlt—nope, can't do it," Shawn said. "You're a Lassie. I think it's your big soulful puppy dog eyes."

Lassiter heaved a sigh. "You're never going to stop calling me that, are you?" he asked.

"I always give nicknames to people I love," Shawn said. "Gus. Jules. Henry."

"Henry isn't a nickname," Lassiter said. "And those are all better than mine."

"You'd rather I call you Jules?" Shawn asked.

"That's not what I meant," Lassiter snapped.

"How about Lassoles? Lasselot? Lass? Ass?" Shawn grinned. "That last one has potential."

"Stick with Lassie," he snapped.

"I knew you'd come around," Shawn said, and continued to rifle through the glove box to find any spare snacks. It looked like Lassiter had eaten his way through all of them. Shawn frowned when he glanced back up and realized they were on Lassiter's street. "I don't have my motorcycle here. If you really need to take a nap, can you drop me off at the Psych office first?"

"You need to sleep, Shawn," Lassiter said. "How long have you been up now?"

"Insomnia only kills you if you go eleven days without sleep," Shawn said. "I think I'm still safe."

"Will you at least try?" Lassiter asked. "Because I need to sleep, Shawn, and I don't like the idea of you going to a mental institution without supervision. They may not let you out."

"They'd be lucky to have me," Shawn said. "I'm a lot of fun."

"Shawn," Lassiter said.

Shawn rolled his eyes as Lassiter pulled into his driveway. "Fine," he said. "But we're going to Acres and Groves, first thing after your beauty sleep, right?"

"Of course," Lassiter said. "It's not even six. We need to rest or we'll miss something."

"That's not actually a problem for me," Shawn told him, but Lassiter was already out of the car. Shawn followed him with another heavy sigh, and braced himself to go inside. They hadn't come to Lassiter's house much since they had gotten together. They had spent most of their time at Shawn's apartment.

Logistically Lassiter's house made a lot more sense. It was bigger, the kitchen was always well stocked with the staples, there were no nosy neighbors. Shawn's apartment was fairly small with noisy people above and beside it, and the only thing he had in his fridge were Skittles.

Shawn stopped in the entryway as Lassiter locked the door behind them and tried not to look into the living room. The bloodstains had all been cleaned, of course. Lassiter had the carpet ripped up and replaced as soon as the CSIs cleared it of all evidence—even the couch was brand new.

But that was the thing about remembering everything. If Shawn looked too hard at the living room floor he could see Drimmer's body laid out across it like it was still there.

Lassiter grabbed his shoulders and steered him past the living room towards the bedroom, which was one part of the house that Shawn had nothing but fond memories of. Lassiter put his gun in the nightstand and toed off his shoes at the same time he shrugged out of his jacket, and Shawn glanced at the floor.

Shawn knew he would be expected to make some kind of lewd comment, but he always felt a little off-kilter when he came here. Lassiter grabbed Shawn's hand and pulled him towards the bed, frowning slightly. "I can move again," he said, and Shawn didn't like that he was that easy to read, so he looked up at Lassiter and grinned.

"Why would you do that?" he asked. He dropped down onto the bed and pushed his shoes off too, before slipping back towards the pillows.

Lassiter lay down beside him with a sigh, and placed a hesitant arm around his waist. "Next time we'll go to your place," he said quietly.

Shawn closed his eyes instead of answering, but he didn't go to sleep.

x x x x x x

Shawn waited until Lassiter was asleep, snoring softly, before slipping out of his arms. Sleep had never come easily to Shawn. Having a mind that remembered everything it saw always made for vivid dreams—and lately the things Shawn had been seeing lend themselves more to nightmares.

He found it especially hard to sleep beside Lassiter. He didn't want to ruin his image by waking up screaming bloody murder because behind his eyes he had seen Lassie or Gus or his father dead, which was mostly the way it went these days, almost always. He was always at the scene of the crime and he was always blind, unable to see a thing to solve the case.

He bet his mother would have a lot to say about something like that. It was probably for the best that he wouldn't ever tell her.

Anyway Shawn didn't know what he was so worried for. He figured that of the four of them the one most likely to end up dead was him. He wondered what it meant that he never dreamt about that.

Shawn shed his clothes as he made his way to the bathroom, and stood under Lassiter's shower for a good fifteen minutes, with his head pressed against the tile, taking careful deep breaths as he dispelled all the images from all the dreams he was refusing to have again. He turned his mind instead to the case at hand. He had to pay a visit to Acres and Groves, he had to find out if Holly ever made it there, and how long she'd stayed. That was the first thing.

He felt better with a goal in mind and finished the shower, before putting his jeans back on and stealing some of Lassiter's socks. He opened the closet carefully and surveyed the stock. Lassiter had shirts all pressed and hung side by side, three nearly identical suit jackets pushed to the far left. Shawn grabbed a blue dress shirt off one of the hangers and pulled it on.

He buttoned it up and rolled the sleeves back a few times, but they still hung over his wrists. It would have to do. He and Lassiter had yet to reach the stage of their relationship where they had assigned each other a drawer, so for now he'd just have to continue to resort to stealing his stuff.

Shawn was searching for his shoes when the doorbell rang. Lassiter rolled over in irritation, his hand automatically going for the drawer where he kept his gun. "I'm 'onna 'ill 'em," he said.

Shawn grabbed his hand before he could grab it. "Simmer down, dirty Harry, it's probably just a girl scout," he said. "I'll answer the door."

Lassiter let out a sigh that may have been an acknowledgement and rolled back over, and Shawn half-wondered if he ever actually fully awoke. He wandered into the living room and opened the door, stiffening almost unconsciously when he saw who was standing there on the other side.

"Well, you're certainly not a girl scout," Shawn said.

His father gave him a once-over that was tempered with badly reigned in disapproval, obviously noting the too large shirt and the fancy black dress socks that didn't have any holes and couldn't have more obviously not belonged to him.

"I've been calling you most of the night," Henry said, looking back up to meet his eyes. "I went to your apartment and you weren't there. It finally occurred to me that I should check here."

"You're quite the detective," Shawn said, stepping onto the porch and closing the door. "What's so urgent that it couldn't wait until I remembered to recharge my phone?"

"I'm worried about you, Shawn, you're going to get hurt," Henry said. "It isn't easy being a cop's wife."

"I believe the politically correct term is 'life partner,'" Shawn said.

"You know what I mean," Henry said, frustrated. "You're just like her, you know."

"You always have to bring her into it, don't you?" Shawn demanded.

"She was a hippie when I met her, into all those new-age psych classes," Henry said. "She hated to be tied to any one place, still does. Sound familiar at all? She couldn't handle it, Shawn, what makes you think you can?"

"Okay, first of all, she handled it for seventeen years, and second of all, I think we both know the problem was less that you were a cop than it was that you were you," he snapped. "And then there's the fact that I'm not mom. And Lassiter sure as hell isn't you."

"I just don't think you're thinking this through," Henry said. "What do you and Lassiter even have in common?"

"We both enjoy a good pineapple," Shawn said. "What's with the twenty questions? You've never cared who I dated before."

"You were never serious about anyone before," Henry said. "I think maybe you are about this, and I don't know if you're ready for this kind of commitment. What happens if you and Lassiter have a fight? You're going to be halfway across state lines before the door finishes slamming shut."

"That's not fair," Shawn said. "I've been back here longer than you, and I haven't run yet. Believe me when I say it hasn't been easy, but I'm still here. I'm not going anywhere."

Henry sighed, glancing back towards the street. "I hope that's true."

"What did you really come here for?" Shawn asked.

"I want you and Lassiter to come for dinner," Henry said. "No surprises this time. Just dinner."

"I'm not sure Lassie can handle seeing you again so soon," Shawn said. "You nearly traumatized him the last time."

Henry crossed his arms. "I'm allowed to be protective, Shawn. You're always going to be my kid. I wanted to know his intentions."

"His _intentions_? You worried he's not going to make an honest man of me?" Shawn asked.

"I'm worried he's going to break your heart," Henry snapped. "There's not too many people in this world you actually let close, Shawn. I'm not even sure if I'm one of them, there's Gus and that's pretty much it."

"You're one of them," Shawn said, only somewhat resentfully. "If not entirely by choice."

"Just come for dinner, okay? I promise not to be too hard on him," Henry said. "How's Monday?"

"Monday is a Gus day," Shawn said. "Wednesday would be better."

"A Gus day?" Henry started. "Nevermind. Wednesday's fine. Be there at seven."

"Alright, but if you start talking about your gun collection again I'm going to grab Lassiter and run," Shawn told him as Henry started towards his truck.

"Oh, and kiddo," Henry said, spinning back around to face him. "The basement looks good. See what you can accomplish when you put your mind to it?"

"It did go much faster after I started selling most of your stuff on eBay," Shawn called after him.

Henry just waved and got in his truck. Shawn figured he'd probably done inventory the moment he left, and so knew he was lying. He closed and locked the door behind him and then wandered back into the house. He stopped right where the kitchen tile met the living room carpet, and frowned down at it. It was the same off-color white that it had been before.

Shawn figured these memories would be a lot a easier to get over if Lassiter was a normal person and had a television instead of a wall of Wanted posters. Shawn didn't like the constant reminders, but he wasn't most people, and he didn't need the reminders because he carried everything around in his head. Shawn looked over at them and then smiled at the one between Attempted Murder Guy and Assault With A Deadly Weapon Guy.

It was a picture of Gus glaring at the camera, eyes squinted, and captioned:

**Burton "Buster" Guster**

**8,000,000.00**

**Dead or Alive.**

He'd made it in photoshop and tacked it up himself in an attempt to give this place the personality that Lassiter's home deserved. He found it endlessly amusing that Lassiter still hadn't noticed it to take it down, and the next time he had a free moment he was going to have to make one for himself. He always wanted a second chance at a good mug shot. His father hadn't let him fix his hair at all before taking the first one.

Shawn was getting restless, so he leaned over the kitchen counter to look at Lassiter's key rack, but the car keys weren't there. He must still have them in his pocket. It was just lucky that these days Shawn was allowed to stick his hands down Lassiter's pants.

He slipped back into the room, pushing his shoes back on before walking to the bed. Lassiter was still sleeping soundly, and Shawn leaned over him, kissing him softly goodbye as he carefully pulled the keys from his pocket. Lassiter stirred awake and ran a hand over his eyes. "Who was at the door?" he asked.

"My dad," Shawn told him.

"You should be sleeping," Lassiter said, frowning as he noticed Shawn was dressed. "Where are you going?"

"Following up on a lead," Shawn said. "Go back to sleep."

Shawn started to pull away, and Lassiter caught his wrist, turning it up to see the keys in his hand. "You must think I'm nuts if you think I'm letting you drive my car," Lassiter said.

Shawn grinned. "Then you'd better get dressed, because you've just volunteered to come with me."


	6. The Monica Closet

While Lassiter reluctantly took a shower so he could play chauffeur, Shawn took the opportunity to go through his things. It's been Shawn's experience that organized people always had a Monica Closet. Monica Geller fooled everyone for years into thinking she was the quintessential clean freak, until Chandler stumbled on that closet with all that junk stacked inside nearly bursting right out of it.

Shawn wanted to find Lassiter's Monica Closet. The wisdom inherent in _Friends_ hadn't let him down yet.

He checked the drawers and under the bed, but all he found in the drawers were gun magazines and the only thing he found under the bed was one of his own socks that had been MIA since his last visit here.

Shawn listened at the door to make sure the water was still running and then went to check the rest of the house. There was no attic. The hall closet held a broom and some spare sheets. Shawn had already seen the garage. Lassiter was one of those odd, rare people that actually kept the garage clean enough that he had space to park his car.

The basement was his last hope. Shawn opened the door and flipped on the light.

He grinned. Jackpot.

Shawn started down the steps and was pulled to an abrupt stop. "Going somewhere?" Lassiter asked, all freshly cleaned in a new suit.

Shawn turned to face him. "I wanted to see your basement, you know, compare notes. I just finished organizing my father's, and I thought you might have some useful tips. But obviously your method of storage is to just toss a bunch of random stuff down the stairs and see where it lands."

Lassiter frowned at him. "It's not that bad," he said, looking back at it. "It's just the stuff I don't have time to deal with."

"I'll organize it for you," Shawn offered.

Lassiter narrowed his eyes. "What's the catch?" he asked.

"No catch," Shawn said. "I love to clean. Ask anyone."

"You have three weeks of dishes in your sink," Lassiter said.

"I don't count dishes," Shawn said. "Dishes are a whole other thing. No one likes cleaning dishes, or cutlery of any kind."

"You just want to go through my stuff," Lassiter said, pulling him out of the basement and shutting the door. "There's nothing special down there."

"You have a ten foot stuffed panda down there," Shawn said. "Tell me there's not a story behind that."

"It's only three feet, and there's no story, I just won it at a carnival," Lassiter said. "Look—we don't have time for this. I thought we were going to go investigate?"

"Right," Shawn said, though his fingers were itching to reopen that door. "Eveline. Holly. Murderer on the loose. You're right. First things first. I'll go through your stuff later."

"I'm not letting you organize my basement," Lassiter said.

"Okay," Shawn said. "That's your choice. I respect it. I promise when I come back to go through your stuff later, I won't organize it at all."

Lassiter sighed and pressed the palm of one hand against his forehead. "You're not going to let this go, are you?" he asked.

"Are you going to tell me you haven't gone through my stuff?" Shawn asked.

"Frankly, Shawn, I'm afraid to go through your stuff," Lassiter said. "There's probably a dozen things I could arrest you for just in your bedside drawer. Impersonating an officer, impersonating a health inspector, impersonating a rodeo clown—"

"Are you sure that last one is against the law?" Shawn asked. "I don't think you can actually prove that I'm not a rodeo clown."

"You're kind of missing the point," Lassiter said.

"Is the point that you have stuff in your basement that could get your arrested?" Shawn asked. "Do you keep stolen goods in the panda?"

"No," Lassiter snapped.

"Then you're right, I'm missing the point," Shawn said. "Why can't I go through your stuff again?"

"Because we're leaving," Lassiter said in irritation, and steered Shawn to the front door. Shawn decided to let it go for now, and climbed into the passenger side of Lassiter's car.

Lassiter pulled out of the driveway, and glanced at Shawn, obviously trying to distract him. "Was your father really here?"

"I know you're changing the subject," Shawn said. "I'm going to let you get away with it only because I think you have a right to know that yes, my father did come to your house. He knows where you live. Be afraid."

"Henry's been here before, Shawn, he was here after Drimmer," Lassiter said, and then grimaced. "He came over for poker a few times before that."

"Poker?" Shawn asked. "And you didn't invite me?"

"You probably cheat," Lassiter said.

"Is counting cards cheating?" Shawn asked. "I don't think so. Everyone has their own way to play. I can't help that my way of playing is better than most."

"What I'm trying to say is, I'm not afraid of your father," Lassiter said.

"You looked pretty terrified the other day," Shawn told him.

"I've had time to process it since then, and I've decided it's really ridiculous, being intimidated by Henry," Lassiter said. "Henry wouldn't do anything crazy."

"Pretty much everything Henry does is crazy," Shawn said. "You only know police officer Henry, who plays poker and likes to fish. You haven't quite gotten to know dad Henry yet, and while I think it's really adorable how you're not scared, dad Henry is the craziest Henry of all."

"Everyone thinks that about their dad," Lassiter said.

"Henry is not a normal dad. He's like every crazy sitcom dad ever rolled into one. He nailed my window shut once," Shawn said. "Can you believe that?"

"Were you using it to sneak out?" Lassiter asked.

"Of course," Shawn said. "But it was still excessive. He also used to follow me on dates. One weekend he even set up a whole fake vacation, said he was going out of town with my mom, and the whole time they were at a motel a couple of blocks away. He wanted to know what I would do when I thought he was out of town. He set up a sting, on his sixteen-year-old son, and then got all self-righteous when I threw a party. He sets me up to fail."

"Shawn," Lassiter started.

Shawn ignored him, and glanced out the side window. "And then of course you know about the time he arrested me."

"You stole a car," Lassiter said.

"I _borrowed_ a car," Shawn said.

"I read the report," Lassiter said. "You hotwired it."

"If my dad didn't want me to hotwire cars, he shouldn't have shown me how," Shawn protested. "He overreacts about every little thing."

"Look," Lassiter said, "at least he cares, okay? My father never did any of those things."

"You're lucky," Shawn said.

Lassiter pulled to a stop in front of Acres and Groves. "He never did those things, because he wasn't there to do them," he said, glancing over at Shawn. "At least Henry was trying."

"Lassie," Shawn started, but Lassiter climbed out of the car, slamming the door behind him. Shawn followed him out. "I'm sorry. I didn't know that."

Lassiter pulled his shades off. "I'm not here officially," he said. "I can't flash my badge to get people talking."

Shawn winced. Lassiter was getting good at switching the topic of conversation. "Don't worry, I never have trouble getting people talking," he said. "Just follow my lead."

"We health inspectors?" Lassiter asked dryly.

"I left all my fake IDs in my bedside drawer, so we'll have to wing it," Shawn told him, and entered Acres and Groves. Acres and Groves looked more like a nice hotel than the horror film set that was Wispy Sunny Pines, but it still had that cloying air that could always be found in hospitals: antiseptic and ammonia and something else.

Shawn stopped at the reception desk and rang the bell. Lassiter stood behind him, scanning everything with narrowed eyes. A woman in pink hospital scrubs with little blue and purple hearts on them walked over to the counter. She had short cropped hair dyed Ronald McDonald Red, and about nine different piercings Shawn could spot just on her face. Three in each ear, one in the nose, one in the lip, one in the tongue.

Lassiter was staring at her horror, but Shawn liked to think he was more hip about stuff like that. He glanced at her ID. Her name was Molly Raines. "Groovy piercings, Molly," he said.

She raised a pencil thin eyebrow. "Groovy?" she echoed.

"Hasn't that word made a comeback yet?" Shawn asked. "Groovy? Psychedelic? Psychedelic is a favorite of mine for personal reasons, but didn't seem to apply."

"Are you here to check yourself in?" she asked, in a sotto voice aimed to keep him calm.

"Oh for—" Lassiter snapped, before pushing Shawn out of the way. "We're here about Holly Graves."

"Oh, thank god!" she said, her demeanor switched from wary to relieved in a few seconds flat. "I was so afraid no one was going to come. I called weeks ago."

Lassiter opened his mouth and this time Shawn was the one to push him aside. "We're sorry it's taken us so long to get back to you," he said. "What's happened to Holly?"

"She's gone," Molly said. "She just disappeared one day. We searched the whole hospital, none of the alarms were ever set off, she was just gone."

"Why wasn't this reported to the police?" Lassiter demanded.

"This isn't a prison, Holly was put here at the request of her father, not for any crime," Molly said defensively. "Mr. Graves didn't want anything reported. He said he knew where she was, but I didn't believe him. I tried to get in touch with Mr. Matheus, but I couldn't seem to find him."

"Aldis Matheus the Seventh?" Shawn inquired.

"Yes," Molly said, and then started to look a little suspicious. "I assumed you were here on his behalf. I left a dozen messages with him."

"Of course we are," Shawn said. "But you know there were six other Aldis Matheus' before him, and it doesn't hurt to be exact."

"I guess," Molly said bemusedly, before turning back to Lassiter. "Anyway, Mr. Graves called and said Holly wouldn't need to come back, but now he won't return any of my calls. I wanted to make sure she was alright."

"You seem close with her," Shawn said. "Did you bond over your rhyming names?"

"We were kind of friends," Molly said quietly, before glancing behind her to make sure they were alone. "You're not really supposed to do that. I mean, be nice, right, but not become friends. Except Holly was different, she wasn't like the others. She didn't belong here."

"What was she diagnosed with?" Lassiter asked.

"Don't you know?" she demanded. "I thought you were friends with the family?"

"We are," Shawn said. "But everything we know about it we heard from Harvey, and I think we both know he would have said anything to excuse keeping Holly here."

Molly sighed. "You know about that?" she asked. "He was awful. Makes these huge donations to this place, gets a wing named her, all in return for keeping her safely locked out of his sight. You know he only visited her once a year on her birthday? At least Mr. Matheus was here everyday. But you didn't hear any of this from me."

"She never had any other visitors?" Lassiter asked.

"No," Molly said. "She always told me Andie was going to show up every day. But whoever he was, he never did."

"And how long was Holly here for?" Lassiter asked.

"About fifteen years?" Molly guessed. "Since long before I started anyway."

"You never told us what was wrong with Holly," Shawn asked.

Molly frowned. "Well, she wasn't like other people, she wasn't perfect, but she didn't have to be here," she said. "Her diagnosis was always tentative. Doctors thought maybe some Asperger syndrome, but she functions fine, mostly. Just a little odd. Has trouble relating to others, making connections, but she's smart. Reads books I'd need a dictionary to understand. In my opinion she could easily be living on her own, but I'm not a doctor, right, so what do I know?"

"You think she was smart enough to sneak out of here without setting of any of the alarms?" Shawn asked.

"She must have," Molly nodded. "Because I know she left on her own, she left me a note."

"Do you still have it?" Lassiter demanded.

"No," Molly said, "but I remember what it said. Just: Goodbye, I'm going to find Andie. That's all."

"And you don't know who that is?" Shawn asked.

"No idea," Molly said. "But I hope she finds him. She deserves better than she's had."

"One last question," Lassiter said. "When exactly did Holly leave here?"

"Two weeks ago," Shawn answered.

Molly glanced at him, startled. "Yes, almost to the day," she said.

"Thank you, Molly, you've been a great help," Shawn said, before spinning around and starting for the doors. Lassiter followed after him.

"You've onto something," Lassiter said.

"Not yet," Shawn said. "I'm still piecing it all together, but we're close."

"I'd say we're more than close," Lassiter said, as they got into the car. "Holly spends fifteen years exiled to that place, breaks out, kills Harvey and then goes after Eveline."

"No," Shawn said.

"What? What do you mean no?" Lassiter demanded. "You're the one that figured it out. You were right."

"No, there's something not quite right about that," Shawn said. "We're missing something."

"We've got motive, means, opportunity," Lassiter said. "Just what are we missing?"

"Andie," Shawn said. "Who's Andie?"

"She was crazy," Lassiter said. "It was probably her imaginary friend."

"And did she build that wall by herself?" Shawn asked. "No, she had help. Someone was helping her. Maybe someone still is."

"Even if someone is, I still have to call this in, you know that," Lassiter said.

"Call it in?" Shawn asked. "Call it in where?"

"The station, Shawn," Lassiter said. "They need to go pick Holly up."

"For what?" Shawn demanded.

"Well, let's see, she's an escapee from a mental institution, sneaking around and living in a hidden room," he said. "And someone's been trying to kill Eveline in her home. Guess who gets to be suspect number one."

"The butler?" Shawn asked. "I admit that Alfred is growing on me, but I'm not ready to count him out yet. He's the only one to consistently visit Holly."

"Holly needs to be brought in, for her own good as much as anyone else's," Lassiter said. "I'm calling O'Hara. They need to take her in for questioning."

"This is a bad idea," Shawn said. "We should just go there alone, talk to Holly, try and figure out what's really going on here."

"I'm not working this case officially, and I'm not letting you anywhere near some crazed potential killer," Lassiter snapped. "We do this by the book. I'm sure O'Hara will let you talk to Holly just as soon as we have her in custody."

"Fine," Shawn snapped, and sunk low in the passenger seat.

Lassiter let him sulk, and pulled out his phone to call O'Hara. "O'Hara. Lassiter. It seems that Harvey Graves has a daughter that's spent the last fifteen years over at Acres and Groves. She snuck out a couple weeks ago and has been hiding in the mansion ever since."

Shawn, despite all appearances of nonchalance, strained to hear Juliet's response. "Got it," she answered. "I'll get a team together and go pick her up now. You think she's dangerous?"

Lassiter glanced at Shawn, who looked away. "It's always safer to assume they are," he told her, before hanging up. He started up the car and pulled out quickly. "We'll go there, okay? Once she's secured I'm sure you can talk to her, but I told you before you can't keep running off to try and catch these people alone. You're not trained for this."

Shawn didn't answer him. Instead, he turned away and braced one of his feet against the glove box. He saw Lassiter's mouth tighten, worrying about footprints on his flawless interior, but he ignored it.

"What, you're not talking to me now?" Lassiter demanded.

Shawn crossed his arms. "I don't do long silences," he said resentfully, "but that's the only reason I'm still talking to you."

"I'm just doing my job," Lassiter said. "And whether you like it or not, part of that job is protecting you."

"Well, my job was a lot easier when you didn't care what happened to me," Shawn said petulantly. "I can take care of myself. I've done it for years without help from anyone. Well, except for Gus, but he doesn't count!"

"I'd be doing the same thing with anyone, no matter my personal feelings," Lassiter snapped. "I resent the implication that I wouldn't."

"How many times, since you've known me, have I been wrong about a case?" Shawn asked quietly.

Lassiter's hands tightened on the steering wheel, but he didn't answer.

"Yeah," Shawn said, leaning back in the seat and putting on his sunglasses. "That's what I thought."

Shawn and Lassiter didn't speak for the rest of the ride. Shawn's fingers itched to turn on the radio just to have some sound, but knowing Lassiter it was probably tuned to NPR, and he'd prefer the awkward silence.

Shawn pushed the sunglasses back on his head and sat up straighter when they pulled into the driveway of the mansion. There were three patrol cars in front, with lights flashing but no sirens. He could spot Jules and Buzz amongst all of the bullet-proof vest wearing officers, standing on the front step talking to Eveline.

"Do you think she brought up enough backup?" Shawn asked snidely.

"We need enough people to search the house," Lassiter told him calmly. "You wouldn't be here at all if you weren't our best shot at finding her quickly."

Lassiter got out of the car and slammed the door, and Shawn was tempted not to help. It would probably take them hours to find that hidden room without him, and she might not even be there. But one way or another, Holly couldn't keep living like that. She had to be found.

Shawn got out the car and joined Lassiter, Jules and Buzz at the doorway. Eveline smiled gratefully when she saw him. "Shawn, I don't know what's going on. They want to search the house for Holly, but I don't think this is necessary, really, I—"

Shawn wanted to agree with her, but he didn't. "Holly left a psychiatric hospital without permission," Shawn said. "She may need help. We need to find her. We'll all be very careful, won't we?"

"Of course," Juliet said reassuringly.

After a moment, Eveline nodded and stepped back. She grabbed Shawn's arm when he went to follow the others. "They said Holly might have killed Harvey," she said. "Do you think that's true?"

"I need to speak with her before I know anything for sure," Shawn said.

Eveline nodded and let him go. Lassiter and Juliet were waiting for him by the hallway.

"Shawn, do you know where?" Juliet asked him.

Shawn pointed to the stairway. "She'd go somewhere she felt safe, she'd probably be in her father's room."

"Shawn," Lassiter said tightly.

Shawn heaved a sigh, and pointed to the other hallway. "Okay, she'd probably be in the hidden room down that way." He started to the hallway and Lassiter grabbed him by the back of his shirt, before turning him towards the other hall.

"Wrong hall," Lassiter snapped. "Stop messing around and show us the room."

"Okay," Shawn said, slipping out of Lassiter's grip. "Fine. If you already know where she is, then why don't you lead the way?"

"Harvey's office," Lassiter said, staring at Shawn the whole time. "It's this way."

Shawn followed Juliet and Lassiter, walking beside Buzz. Juliet motioned for the rest of the officers to spread out. The lights in the hall still weren't working, but there was enough spare sunlight that they could see where they were going. Juliet went into the office first, gun out, to secure the room.

Lassiter ushered Shawn in after her, while Buzz stayed to guard the door. "Okay, Shawn, where is it?" Lassiter asked.

Shawn pointed to the wall. "There somewhere," he said. "Just look for the crack in the wallpaper. I can't remember exactly."

"Stay back," Lassiter told Shawn.

Lassiter and Juliet ran their hands over the wall, searching for any break. He figured Shawn knew exactly where the door was, but was just being purposely vague. That was to be expected, but after a moment Lassiter realized that Shawn had listened to the order to stay back. Shawn never did as he was told.

That's when he started to worry.

Lassiter spun back around, and the room behind him was empty. Shawn was gone. He went to the doorway. "McNab," he snapped. "Where did Spencer go?"

"He didn't go anywhere, he's still in the room," Buzz said.

"Lassiter?" Juliet asked. "What's wrong?"

Lassiter narrowed his eyes at the opposite wall. Unlike Shawn, he made no claims of prescience, but he still knew he should have seen this coming. "He lied, the door's hidden on the other wall," he snapped, moving towards it.

He scanned the wallpaper until he spotted the door, but when he pressed against it nothing happened. He slammed a hand against the door. "Spencer! Spencer, you open this damn door!"

x x x x x x

"Hi, Holly," Shawn said, as he turned the lock on the door behind him.

Holly stared at him with wide eyes. She didn't look much older than her picture, though she had to be thirty by now. She was wearing the same torn white dress he'd seen her in before, with a big bow half untied on the back of it. Her blonde hair was braided all the way down to her waist.

"You shouldn't be here," she said. "This room is secret."

"I didn't mean to interrupt," Shawn said, stepping closer, with his hands out palms up. "What are you doing?"

She was sitting on her bed and writing on the back of a magazine in purple pen, streams of words that couldn't really be seen overlaid on top of a Maybellene ad. "Someone took my diary," she told him.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about that, that was me," Shawn said.

"That's stealing," she said sternly. "And you're not supposed to lock the door. That's for emergencies only."

"This kind of qualifies," Shawn said. "Holly, do you know who I am?"

"You were in the hall the other day, but I don't talk to strangers," she said. "I shouldn't be talking to you now."

Shawn could hear Lassiter pounding on the door, shouting for him to open it. Holly winced at the noise but ignored it. "I'm Shawn Spencer, I was hired by Eveline to help. See? I'm not a stranger if you know my name," he said. "I talked to Molly today. She's worried about you."

"Molly's my friend," Holly said. "But I had to go away from there."

"Why did you have to leave, Holly?" he asked.

"Andie wouldn't come see me, so I had to go find her," Holly said. "She said we're going to be okay now that Harvey's gone."

"Who is Andie?" Shawn asked.

"She tucked me in, but not anymore, she was sent away," Holly said. "I hid where I couldn't be found, or I would have been sent away, too."

"I'm sorry," Shawn said. Outside, he could hear Lassiter screaming orders. He didn't seem to care that he wasn't supposed to be here officially anymore. "Have you been sleeping here?"

"I don't sleep well," Holly said. "This room is smaller than it was before. I see things, when I sleep, and I don't like it."

"I have bad dreams too," Shawn said.

"There's no such thing as bad dreams," she said. "There's dreams and there's nightmares. They're different things."

Shawn nodded. "Then I don't have dreams anymore, at least not at night."

Holly watched him carefully for a moment, before nodding and turning away. "She used to come here, you know, sweet dreams, sweet dreams—but never there, I never saw her there. It's why I came back, it's why I came home."

"What about your father?" he asked.

"I call him Harvey, he was very strict about that," she said. "Hello, Harvey, how are you today. I am well. Goodbye, Harvey, have a pleasant evening."

"He taught you to do that? Say those things?" Shawn asked.

"Oh, yes, he taught me to say lots of things, so I would seem normal," she explained. "Do I seem normal? Is it working?"

"You're doing just fine," Shawn said. "I need you to tell me more about Andie."

"Andie, I always call her Andie, you know. Harvey and Andie," Holly said. "Are you doing well today? You're looking very well. Have a pleasant evening."

"Andie was your mother," Shawn said in realization.

"Oh, you mustn't call her that," Holly said. "It's Andie. It's always been Andie. No one knows, you see. I'm the secret."

"You don't have to be a secret anymore," Shawn said. The pounding behind them was growing louder. Shawn could pick out Lassiter's voice in the crowd, demanding again for him to open the door. He stepped closer to Holly instead.

"Andie said it was my fault, if I had been better, smarter, Harvey would have married her instead, we would have been a family," she said. "But he didn't want a daughter like me so that's why he's just Harvey."

"Do you know what happened to Harvey?" Shawn asked.

"I found him dead in the pool," Holly said, tracing a model's eye with the purple marker like she was drawing on eye shadow. "I dragged him out but he was still dead."

"Did you see what happened?" Shawn asked.

Holly shook her head. "I had to stay out of his way, he wanted to send me back," she said. "But he couldn't send me back if he couldn't find me. I'd hear him sometimes, working at his desk, on the other side of the wall."

"What about Aldis?" Shawn asked.

"Aldis helps me," Holly said, and smiled. "He had this wall built when Andie asked him. He brings me food. Sometimes he tells me stories."

Shawn could see something like a crowbar jammed into the edge of the door, and he knew they didn't have long. "Holly, some of my friends are out there. They're going to want you to go with them."

"They want to take me back," she said sadly.

"Yeah," Shawn said. "But I'm going to prove that you haven't done anything wrong."

Holly turned to look at Shawn. "How can you be sure I haven't?"

"I'm psychic," Shawn said.

Holly laughed. "No you're not," she said, and the door slammed open behind her. Two of the officers gently grabbed her by both arms while Lassiter slipped past them to Shawn.

"Are you alright?" he demanded. Shawn nodded.

"Goodbye, Shawn," Holly said. "It was nice to meet you. I hope you have a very pleasant evening."

Shawn stepped towards her and Lassiter grabbed him. "Hey, slow down," Lassiter snapped.

"It's going to be okay!" Shawn called after her.

"That's what Andie said, too," she said as they led her from the room. "But it wasn't true."

Shawn had stopped fighting Lassiter's hold, waiting instead until he let go to step away. "What the hell was that, Spencer?" Lassiter asked. "Did she lock the door or did you?"

"I think you already know the answer to that," Shawn said.

"You don't lock yourself in a room with a crazy murder suspect, Shawn! What is the matter with you?" Lassiter demanded, grabbing Shawn's arm to spin him around so they were face to face.

"I had to know for sure," Shawn said.

"What?" Lassiter snapped. "What did you have to know that was so important?"

"That she was innocent," Shawn said.

Lassiter reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose, but it did nothing to stall the headache that he felt coming on. "Is this like with Cyril?"

"I was right about Cyril," Shawn said.

"Not completely," Lassiter snapped. "You went into this convinced she was innocent. Why? What do you know that I don't?"

"I know she's not a killer," he said. "You know her father used to make her rehearse? Little phrases for her to say when other people were around. Hello, how are you today? That kind of thing. Over and over. She has it written hundreds of times in that diary we found, but I didn't realize why until now."

Lassiter heaved a sigh, and lowered his hand. "Shawn—"

"I know what it's like to constantly disappoint your father," Shawn said. "We do okay now, but this is actually the closest we've been since I was eleven years old. I know what it's like. And Holly's never had someone to speak up for her."

"You're not anything like her, and everything you just said, that sounds like motive to me," Lassiter said quietly. "She had every reason to hate him."

"She had every reason to, but she didn't," Shawn said. "She didn't come back here for revenge, she came back here because she wanted a home, she wanted a family."

"She's mentally unstable, you know that," Lassiter said. "She's going to be safer in custody, either way. They're going to get her help."

"She doesn't need their help," Shawn said. "She needs mine."

"If she's innocent, we're going to prove it," Lassiter said. "We're just going to do it the right way."

"What you need to be doing is finding Andie," Shawn said.

"The imaginary friend?" Lassiter asked.

"She's not imaginary, she's Holly's mother," Shawn said.

"As far as we can tell, Holly doesn't even have a birth certificate. We can't find her mother. I'll make sure O'Hara asks Holly about Andie, but we can't just let Holly go because you've got a hunch."

"Right, of course not," Shawn said, and started for the door. "I'll find her myself."

Lassiter brushed past him and blocked the doorway out. "You're still not trusting me."

"Shouldn't that be my line?" Shawn asked. "I'm the one asking to be believed. You said before, with Cyril, that you only couldn't trust me because I was lying to you, but I'm not lying now and you're still not listening to me."

"Because you're not explaining your reasons any better than you did before," Lassiter said.

Shawn laughed. "Right, you want me to trust you, but you're the one that keeps asking me to explain myself. I'm not going to keep trying if you're not going to listen to what I say. You've got Holly in custody. Congratulations. Go have a drink and celebrate."

Shawn ducked under Lassiter's arm and went out the door. "Shawn!" Lassiter called after him, but Shawn didn't stop.

He went down the hallways and the down the front steps. He could see the back of Holly's braided hair in the back of a patrol car, driving away, and he didn't notice the other patrol car coming down the driveway right at him.

Shawn spun around at the sound of screeching brakes, and stared down at the hood of the police car that had stopped all of three inches from his feet. Buzz stared back at him from the driver's seat, looking just as startled, and then leaned out the window with a frown.

"You need to look both ways before crossing the street," Buzz told him seriously, and Shawn was guessing this was as stern as Buzz would ever manage to get.

"You're right, I'm sorry. You heading back to the station?" he asked. "Do you think you could drop me off at the Psych office?"

"Sure, hop in," Buzz said. He glanced at Shawn as he got in the passenger seat. "Are you okay?"

"Fine," Shawn said. He saw Lassiter rushing out of the mansion in the side mirror as they pulled out into the street, but Buzz didn't seem to notice.

Buzz had apparently already gotten over their near miss, and was smiling brightly as he talked about his wife. Shawn tuned him out until he was just a bunch of friendly Buzz white noise, and wished he had a Red Bull.

"—but, well, you know how it is to be in a relationship, it's never all easy, is it?" Buzz said.

Shawn finally tuned him back in and turned to him in surprise. "Huh?"

"Well, you're dating _Lassiter_," Buzz said. "Don't get me wrong. Detective Lassiter is a great guy. I like him a lot. But he kinda scares me."

"You know about me and Lassiter?" Shawn asked.

"Doesn't everyone?" Buzz asked. "I didn't realize it was a secret, you're just so obvious."

"No, it's not really a secret," Shawn said. "It's just no one else believes me."

"You started seeing each other after the Dah-Ling case, right?" Buzz asked. "I noticed right away. Lassiter smiles more. At first I was kind of terrified, but then I realized it was because of you."

Shawn shifted and looked out the window. The first few days were always smiles. That's why Shawn's relationships never lasted past them. "It's not a secret, but could you not spread it around?" Shawn asked. "Lassiter would probably appreciate it."

"What about you?" Buzz asked.

"I'm not sure it's even going to matter much longer," Shawn said, as they pulled to a stop in front of the Psych office. "Thanks for the ride."

"Anytime," Buzz said, but he was frowning again, and Shawn's mood must be pretty terrible if he was even bringing Buzz down.

Shawn waved goodbye to Buzz, and waited until he drove off to hop on his bike. He needed some time to think, to clear his head. To piece this case and his life together in some way that made sense again. So he started driving.

It was anyone's guess where he was going to end up.


	7. Break Ups and Break Throughs

Note: I'm so sorry it's been so long since my last update! Work has yet again been sucking me of all will to live, but I'm trying very hard to have this finished by Halloween. Many thanks to dracofiend for the beta! And as always to FCOL, for all of her help!

* * *

Lassiter dialed Shawn's number for the fifth time, but it went straight to voicemail again. Shawn either didn't have his phone on or he hadn't bothered to recharge it. He was pretty sure it was the latter.

He felt a little dizzy, with the image of Shawn driving off with McNab stuck like a jammed film reel behind his eyes. It all felt a little too much like watching Victoria drive away, sitting in the back of that limo her father had sent to pick her up, with her oversized black sunglasses and her stiff upper lip.

Victoria hadn't looked back, either.

"Carlton, what are you doing here?" Vick asked.

Lassiter glanced up with a frown. He hadn't even seen her walk up to him. "Chief," he said.

She crossed her arms as she looked him over. "You're supposed to still be on leave," she said. "I thought I was very clear."

Lassiter cleared his throat, and reluctantly slipped his phone back in his pocket. He knew Shawn wouldn't answer his call, even if he could. "I'm not here as an officer, but Eveline Graves hired Spencer," he said. "I've been assisting him."

Vick gave a laugh of disbelief. "You've been assisting him?" she echoed. "Jeez, Lassiter. If you're so desperate you're even working in Mr. Spencer's employ, I guess we can make an exception and let you come back from leave a few days early."

Lassiter had been meaning to go find Shawn, for once grateful that he wasn't on the clock, but he could work this to his advantage. "In that case, I'd like to be the one to question Holly Graves," he said.

Vick frowned. "She's been taken to the hospital for psychiatric evaluation," she said. "Frankly I think the court will find she isn't fit to stand trial, and this is most likely going to end up with a plea. I don't think we need to push for an interrogation right now. She needs help more than we need a quick confession."

"You're assuming she's guilty," Lassiter said.

Vick raised an eyebrow. "You think she isn't?"

"Spencer thinks she isn't," Lassiter said. "I think we should listen to him, or at least follow this through."

"You think Spencer is right?" Vick asked. "Maybe it's you I should have sent for psychological evaluation."

"It's not—" Lassiter started, but Vick moved past him up the steps to the house.

"Go ahead and question her. But I want a report on my desk by 5:00 PM with everything you know, including any of Mr. Spencer's divinations," she called behind her.

Lassiter considered going to find O'Hara for a moment before getting into his car alone. He couldn't handle his partner today; she was getting to know him far too well. She'd see something was wrong, and O'Hara being O'Hara, she'd want to do something crazy like _talk_ about it.

He pulled out his cellphone again before starting the car, but this time he wasn't calling Shawn.

"McNab," a cheery voice said.

Lassiter squinted against an oncoming migraine, and considered not for the first time that he was allergic to cheerful people, except maybe Shawn. Or maybe especially to Shawn. "I need to talk to Spencer," he said.

"He's not here," Buzz said, his voice going to level and inflectionless, in a way Lassiter tried to tell himself he didn't find disturbing.

"Where is he then?" Lassiter demanded.

"He asked me to drop him off. He seemed…upset," Buzz said. "I'd never seen him like that."

"Where did you take him?" Lassiter asked.

"Are you asking me officially?" Buzz asked, sounding uncomfortable. "Because I know about the personal relationship you have with Shawn, and I'm not sure if I should be saying anything—"

"You know—" Lassiter broke off, holding a hand to his forehead. "I just need to find him, McNab. You know what he's like when he's on a case. He's going to get himself into trouble. I only want to help."

"The Psych office," Buzz said after a moment. "But you didn't hear it from me."

"Thanks," Lassiter said, ending the call and starting the car. Lassiter drove by the Psych office on his way to the hospital, but Shawn's bike was gone and the sign on the door said closed.

Lassiter wanted to turn around and try to track Spencer down, because something was niggling at the back of his neck that he was going to disappear—that same feeling he'd get with suspects sometimes, right before they took off running. A kind of look in the eye, something cornered.

Lassiter knew he'd smothered Victoria. He'd always wanted to know where she was. It wasn't that he was controlling, exactly—it was for his own peace of mind. Seeing the kinds of things he saw everyday, it got pretty easy to imagine that person beneath the white sheet was someone he loved. He knew better than most that it could happen to anyone.

But Victoria hadn't been able to put up with that for long, and Shawn wouldn't put up with it at all, so he put the car in drive and started back to the hospital instead.

He had to start trusting him, Shawn was right about that. This seemed as good a place as any to start, because if there was one thing that could be counted on when it came to Spencer, it was that he wouldn't leave a case unsolved.

And he trusted Shawn enough to know that if he said this one wasn't over yet, it wasn't.

x x x x x x

The door swung open on only the second knock, and Shawn stuck his hands deep in his pockets and stared at the ground instead of looking up.

"Hi, Dad," he said. "Mind if I come in?"

It was Shawn asking and not just coming in that really tipped Henry off that something was wrong. Henry moved aside at once to let him in. "What's wrong?" he asked. "Where have you been?"

"I've been driving around for awhile," Shawn said, as he walked past him. "It should make you happy to know you were right."

"Right about what?" Henry asked.

"You called it brilliantly," Shawn said. "First fight with Lassiter and I was running." Shawn sat down at the table, crossing his arms on it and then burying his head in them.

Henry ruffled his hair as he walked by him to the fridge. "I'm proud of you," he said.

"You're proud of me?" Shawn demanded, voice muffled from his arms. "For doing exactly what you said I would?"

"You didn't," Henry said. "I said you'd be heading out of town, but you haven't. You came here instead."

"Which just goes to show how much my judgment has been impaired," Shawn argued, reluctantly lifting his head.

Henry dropped a tub of ice cream in front of Shawn, and he eyed it dubiously. "Leftovers from the Gus bribe?" Shawn asked petulantly.

"Be nice, or you won't get any sprinkles," Henry said, and sat across from him.

Shawn narrowed his eyes at his father, where he sat with his out of character, calm, neutral behavior. "I thought you'd be happy this was falling apart," he said. "Why aren't you gloating?"

"Look, you may not exactly be a wilting flower the rest of the time, but when Lassiter's around you kind of—you light up," Henry said, stumbling over his words in embarrassment. "I haven't ever seen you like that with anyone else."

"Yeah, but I figured you were holding out hope I was going to toe the line, get the picture perfect life you wanted for me," Shawn protested. "I mean, except for the whole being a real cop thing, which we both know isn't all it's cracked up to be. I know you thought I was going to grow out of this."

"Please, Shawn, I've known this wasn't just some phase since you watched Top Gun and told me you planned to marry Val Kilmer," Henry said, but the exasperation in his voice was, if anything, fond. "That's not the problem. I kind of figured out awhile back that you were never going to end up with some picket fence, a wife and kids. Frankly the thought of you having kids terrifies me, though you'd more than deserve everything they'd put you through."

Shawn rolled his eyes. Henry leaned forward, forcing Shawn's eyes to focus back on him. "What it comes down to is this," he said. "You're my kid. As long as you're happy, and safe, then I'll learn to live with anything else."

"Seriously?" Shawn asked. "Because your track record does not reflect this."

"Maybe you're not the only one who's changed," Henry said. "I've learned what's important to me, Shawn. Maybe it's time you figure out what's important to you."

"How am I supposed to do that?" Shawn demanded.

"You could start by asking yourself why you're still here," Henry said.

"I couldn't leave, even if I wanted to. I've got a case to finish," he said, and slouched in the chair.

"Like you've never left a job unfinished before?" Henry asked.

"This is different," Shawn said.

"Yeah," Henry said, and pushed the bottle of sprinkles across the table to Shawn. "Welcome to being a grown-up, kid, you finally made it. Whether you meant to or not."

"I certainly didn't mean to," Shawn said miserably. "Being a grown up sucks."

"There are consolations," Henry said gently. "Being a grown up means you get to be in a grown up relationship. What happened with Lassiter?"

"I'm not talking about this with you," Shawn said. "That's not why I came here."

"Then why did you come here?" Henry asked.

"I need help with the case," Shawn said, getting to his feet to pace. "I'm missing something, I know it. It's right there in front of me—but I—"

"You should be talking to Lassiter," Henry said.

"You think I didn't try?" Shawn snapped. "He doesn't believe me. I told him Holly wasn't responsible, and he—he doesn't care."

"I don't buy that," Henry said. "What proof did you give him?"

"What is with this obsession with proof? With evidence?" Shawn asked. "I know she didn't do it."

"Shawn," Henry said wearily. "You have this fight with Lassiter all the time, and you know he needs proof before he can act on anything, you know that."

"Yeah, yeah, I know, but there's nothing written that you can't solve the case first and then find it," Shawn protested. "I do things a certain way."

"And so does Lassiter," Henry interrupted. "He follows police procedure and the law and you know it all by heart. Why is this any different?"

Shawn turned on his heel, pacing away from Henry. "It's not," he said reluctantly.

"Shawn," Henry said, shaking his head. "Lassiter's just doing his job."

"Yeah, I know, and he needs the proof, the evidence," he said. "But it isn't going to be found by going after the wrong person, and Lassiter doesn't believe me, he doesn't believe _in_ me, and I told him, Dad—I told him everything, and he still doesn't."

"Did he say that?" Henry asked.

"He didn't have to say it. It's what he didn't say—" Shawn broke off, his eyes going wide. "That's it. She's been right there all along, it's just no one's said a word about her—"

"What are you talking about?" Henry demanded.

"The maid!" Shawn shouted, as he started for the door. "That's what I've been missing, and it's been right there in front of me all this time. I must be completely off my game. I keep thinking about—"

"Lassiter?" Henry asked quietly.

"Among other things," Shawn said, avoiding his father's eyes as he opened the door.

Henry grabbed his arm to tug him back. "Slow down a minute, this isn't about the case, and you know it."

"I told you, I came here because of the case, not Lassiter, and I've got it, you've been a great help as always, see you Wednesday," Shawn said.

"Shawn," Henry snapped. "You look exhausted, just stay for lunch, okay? We'll talk. You been sleeping at all lately?"

"No time to sleep," Shawn said, and slipped out of his grip. "I've got to go solve this case."

"Shawn," Henry called after him. "Shawn, I thought we agreed this wasn't about the case!"

"When you're working a case, it's everything," Shawn said, not stopping or even slowing down. "You taught me that!"

Henry sighed and leaned against the door, watching Shawn hop on his bike and drive off. It just figured that would be the one lesson he'd listen to.

x x x x x x

Lassiter had only been in a psych ward twice before. Back when he'd still be on the beat he'd had to drag a guy here, who had been half out of his mind, shouting about the creatures that lived under the ground. He'd handed him off at the door and they'd taken him inside and that was that.

The second time he'd been here, it was to interview the only witness to a brutal murder. That hadn't taken very long either, because she refused to speak. The last time Lassiter had checked on her progress, she still hadn't spoken a word.

These places were always white and too clean. There was a subtle switch in atmosphere when he went from the main hospital into that locked ward. There were no longer abstract pictures on the wall, there were no splashes of color at all. Lassiter supposed the doctors knew what they were doing, but he figured anyone who didn't go in crazy would end up that way, because all that white had to drive any sane person mad.

"I don't recommend this," the doctor told him, not for the first time since Lassiter had arrived. He was an older man, and with his shock of white hair and that long lab coat, he blended into the scenery like those camouflaged bugs on the nature channel.

"She hasn't confessed to anything," Lassiter told him. "If she's not responsible for what happened we need to know, because that means there's someone still out there who is."

"I understand that," he said, pushing his glasses up on his nose. His nametag said Dr. Blakely, and Lassiter vaguely recognized him from some case or another. He'd been on the stand, claiming a suspect was not fit to stand trial.

Lassiter hadn't liked him then, either.

The doctor pursed his lips when Lassiter made no further comment, and unlocked the door with his key card. "Fifteen minutes," he said. "Not a moment more."

Lassiter moved past him into the room, and tried not to wince as the door clicked locked behind him. He moved his eyes across the tile floor and then up, until they came to rest on Holly.

She too seemed to have adapted to her surroundings, and she looked washed out and faded. Her skin was pale and her light blonde hair hung limply down to frame her face. She'd had her torn white dress traded in for clean white hospital scrubs. The only color left was the blue of her eyes.

"Hello," she said. "How are you today?"

She was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the bed, and wrist restraints lay unlatched along the sides. Lassiter had never been comfortable in places like this. He liked suspects he could yell at, the ones he didn't doubt himself about.

Someone had given Holly a notepad and a purple crayon. She'd drawn at least twenty perfect circles side by side. "You're supposed to answer," Holly told him without looking up. "You say, I'm fine today, and you?"

Lassiter cleared his throat. "I'm fine today," he said softly. "And you?"

"Very well, thank you," she said. "But it's cold here and they took my clothes. Harvey always said I'd end up here without him. In the funny house, he said. It's not very funny though, is it?"

"No, it's not," Lassiter said. "Holly, I need to ask you a question."

"You've already asked me one," she said. "That means you've only got nineteen left."

"I only have one more," Lassiter said. "Who is Andie?"

Holly's hand stilled, the crayon halfway to closing circle number twenty-one. "That's a strange question to ask," she said. "I thought you were here about Harvey. That's what everyone keeps asking me. They want to know how I did it."

"How you did what?" Lassiter asked.

"How I killed him," she said.

"Did you?" he asked. "Kill him?"

"I saw him in the pool. He was floating on a raft, and I thought, that's strange, because he doesn't like to be still, you see, that's the thing you notice first about him, the way he won't sit still, and he always said, mind your manners, keep your elbows off the table, but that's the second thing you notice about him, he never follows his own rules." Holly ran the crayon along the page in a meandering twirling path that seemed to follow the flow of her words, and Lassiter fought the urge to take it from her and protest that she hadn't given an answer to his question at all.

"You saw him die?" he asked.

"No, I didn't see him die," Holly said. "I couldn't see him at all because Andie was holding him under the water. It's so hard to see through water at night. It's black, have you ever noticed that? Water's always the same color as the sky."

"Andie killed Harvey?" Lassiter asked intently, stepping forward.

Holly closed her eyes, and let the crayon slip from her hands. "He just disappeared into the water, and Andie's hands ran along the surface of it like she was sealing him in," she said. "It was odd how quiet it all was. I went to pull him out after she left. He was very heavy though, and I got all wet."

"You don't sound too concerned," Lassiter said slowly. "Why didn't you tell anyone?"

"I don't speak to strangers usually, if I can help it, and the doctors say I don't see things quite right," Holly said. "Maybe they're right to say that, because I feel as sad for her as for him. Is she going to be in trouble?"

"Yeah," Lassiter said gently, and he kneeled by the bed. "Can you tell me where she is?"

"No," Holly said. "You should ask the psychic."

Lassiter frowned. "Shawn?"

"He said it was going to be okay," Holly said, "except it's not, is it?"

"Someone has to answer for what happened," Lassiter said. "Do you understand that?"

"Of course I understand," Holly said. "If my father taught me anything it's that everyone has to answer for something. There's a right response to everything, and we should always be polite."

"Where's your mother, Holly?" Lassiter asked again.

"All I know is that she isn't here," Holly said. "That's all I can say for certain. I'm almost sure I'd know, if she were." She picked up the crayon again, and started to turn the circles into flowers.

"Holly, I need you to look at me," Lassiter said gently. "You have to tell me about her, so we can find her."

"She used to read to me from Lord Byron's _Don Juan_. Isn't that a strange thing to read to a child? But it's beautiful, I knew that even then," she said, focused on her drawing. "Do you know Stanza 30, in Canto 1? 'No doubt this patience when the world is damning us is philosophic in our former friends. 'Tis also pleasant to be deemed magnanimous, the more so in obtaining our own ends, and what the lawyers call a _malus animus_, conduct like this by no means comprehends. Revenge in person's certainly no virtue, but then 'tis not _my_ fault, if others hurt you.'"

"That's some memory," Lassiter said. "I've never read it myself."

"You should," Holly said. "It has something for everyone. My mother's favorite line was this: 'I don't much like describing people mad, for fear of seeming rather touched myself.'"

"We need to find her," Lassiter said. "She might hurt someone else."

"That's the problem with keeping madness to yourself," Holly said. "It isn't like you don't still know it's there, and it always finds a way out somehow."

"You'd tell me, wouldn't you, if you knew where she was?" Lassiter asked.

"I've already told you so much," she said. "I've said more than I should."

"Holly—"

The door opened, and Dr. Blakely stepped in. "That's enough for now, detective. Holly needs her rest."

"No rest for the weary," Holly said. "Though the wicked sleep just fine."

"Goodbye, Holly," Lassiter said, and started towards the door.

"Have a nice day now. Come again soon," Holly said, before finally looking up. "And tell Shawn, I hope he starts dreaming again soon."

"I will," Lassiter said, and then shut the door.

x x x x x x

Shawn got Gus's key out of the fake rock and slipped inside. He found Gus on the couch in his train pajamas, drinking a cup of coffee and watching cartoons.

"I can see you've been very productive today," Shawn told him, dropping down beside him. "While you've been sleeping in and watching cartoons, I've gone and solved our case."

"Where's Lassiter?" Gus asked, glancing at him sideways. "I thought we established that weekends are Lassiter days. I want to enjoy my coffee and finish this Sponge Bob, Shawn."

"Lassiter and I had a fight," Shawn said, grabbing Gus's coffee and drinking what was left. "I think we may have broken up."

"You what? Already?" Gus demanded. "Wait, what do you mean you think? Don't you know?"

"No one's ever broken up with me before, and I've never broken up with anyone," Shawn explained. "So I'm not really clear on the rules."

"That's not possible, Shawn," Gus said. "You've been with a lot of people. You can't still be dating all of them."

"No, of course not, but we always drift apart, or I end up setting them up with someone who's really a lot better suited to their needs," Shawn explained. "I've never had a fight with someone I was sleeping with before."

"Are you serious?" Gus asked.

"Yes!" Shawn said. "Most people don't fight with me, Gus, most people find me adorable and want to take care of me. I don't know what's wrong with you and Lassiter and my dad, you guys yell at me all the time."

"We yell because we care, Shawn," Gus said.

Shawn rolled his eyes. "Well, I don't see how that makes sense," he said. "And definitely not in Lassiter's case. He yells at everyone."

"It's always a little louder when it's you," Gus said.

"Well, it doesn't matter right now," Shawn said. "What matters is that I totally solved the case, so we have to go catch a murderer and get Holly free."

"You're always wanting to go catch murderers," Gus said. "I wish you'd get a different hobby. We're private investigators, we're not bounty hunters."

"I totally could be, though, I still have the vest and everything," Shawn said. "But don't worry, I think we can take this one. Our unsub is a woman between the ages of 40 and 55. She likes to bake cookies and drown people in pools. She has—"

"Stop talking like you're on _Criminal Minds_, Shawn," Gus snapped. "Just tell me who it is."

"The maid!" Shawn shouted, flashing a grin. "We were right. Harvey was totally sleeping with his maid. I knew he was the type."

"Sani?" Gus asked in disbelief. "She's got no motive, and she seemed pretty sure about not sleeping with him. Anyway, there's no way she's over forty."

"No, not Sani," Shawn said, closing his eyes. He took his mind back to that picture on Holly's dresser. The woman was wearing a dress, it was blue instead of grey, and she'd taken off the apron, but it was the same style as Sani's. "I've been so stupid. I've been so sure that it was someone living in the house, but what if it was someone that used to live there?"

"What are you talking about?" Gus asked.

"Eveline told us that Sani's only been the maid there two weeks," Shawn said. "And I never even thought to ask who had worked there before her."

"And so that makes their former maid a murderer?" Gus asked. "I'm not sure I'm following the logic."

"You'll get there," Shawn said, "but first you need to change out of your ridiculous pajamas and put on some grown up clothes. We need to talk to Eveline. We need to find out who the maid was before Sani, and why she was fired."

"You sound like you already know," Gus said.

"I've got a pretty good guess," Shawn said. "I bet when we ask who the maid was, Eveline's going to say her name was Andie."

"The one in Holly's note?" Gus asked.

"Oh, that's right," Shawn said, as Gus stood to change. "I forgot to tell you. Andie's Holly's mother. That's where the whole sleeping with the maid thing comes in. Sometimes when I get things so right without even meaning to, I kind of scare myself."

"Well, if it's any comfort, you scare me most of the time, whether you're right or wrong," Gus said, before heading down the hall.

Shawn slouched down and tilted his head to watch the show. The pineapple under the sea briefly brought back his dream of opening a pineapple shaped smoothie hut, but Gus was like one of those stage actors who could exit backstage and come right back out wearing something else—he only had a moment to muse before Gus was standing in front of him in a neatly pressed suit, impatiently taping one of his hundred dollar shoes (sixty if you subtracted for the gift certificate).

"Shawn! I thought this was urgent?" Gus demanded.

Shawn turned off the television and jumped to follow him. "It is! How did you manage to come out so wrinkle free that quickly?" Shawn demanded.

"I iron all my suits before I hang them up," Gus said. "It's just good sense."

"I think you need to rethink your idea of 'good,'" Shawn said. "And maybe 'sense'? You're going about it all wrong."

Gus rolled his eyes as he unlocked the Echo. "Whatever, Shawn, I know I look good," he said. "You look like a college drop-out."

"I can live with that," Shawn said. "At least I look like I had some college."

"Which of course, you haven't," Gus said.

Shawn joined him in the car. "That's a lie!" he said. "I've taken a number of classes at the SBCC! Theater, remember? I was Othello."

"The Santa Barbara City College? And you were not Othello, you were Iago, and you were a terrible Iago," Gus said.

"That show sold out, Gus, and everyone loved me," Shawn protested. "I got more laughs than anyone."

"Othello is a tragedy, Shawn!" Gus protested. "They're not supposed to laugh!"

"That's besides the point," Shawn said. "Anyway, I also took Underwater Basket Weaving and Economics. I'm sure I was only a few credits away from some kind of degree."

"You took Economics?" Gus said in disbelief.

"Home Economics," Shawn said. "I wanted to make a good wife someday, but they expected me to cook something, so I had to drop it after the second class."

"You made it to the second class?" Gus asked. "I'm impressed."

"There's a lot you don't know about me," Shawn said. "I have hidden depths."

"Clearly," Gus said. "I'm sure you explored them in your underwater basket weaving class."

"I'm sensing sarcasm in your tone, but I'll forgive you because of the awesome pun," Shawn told him.

Gus just shot him an irritated sideways glance and gave the Echo more power, going nearly sixty miles per hour. Shawn started chewing on one of his nails as they made it to Padaro Lane. "Stop it, Shawn," Gus said. "You know onychophagia freaks me out. Do you even realize how much bacteria you're ingesting by putting your fingers in your mouth?"

"No, because I'm a normal person," Shawn said. "As evidenced by the fact that I call people nail-biters, not onychophagiacs."

Gus reached over to pull Shawn's hand down. "What are you so nervous about anyway?" Gus demanded, as they pulled to a stop in front of the gate. The gate pulled open on its own again, and Gus gunned the Echo inside.

"The police probably told Eveline they caught the killer," Shawn explained. "She's going to be off her guard, especially considering the murderer is most likely someone she knows. We've got to warn her, and we've got to find out where Andie is."

"You think she's going to try and go after Eveline again?" Gus asked.

"I think she was unstable before, and Holly's just been taken from her again," Shawn said. "She's going to need someone to blame."

The Echo pulled to a stop in front of the mansion. "That's a good point," Gus said. "But Shawn, what if she's already here?"

"Then we'd better hurry," Shawn said, jumping out of the car.

"That's not what I meant," Gus snapped, but followed him. "What are we supposed to do if we find her?"

"Congratulate ourselves on a job well done?" Shawn said, as he took the steps two at time and reached out to ring the bell. The door swung open before he could reach it, and Aldis stared down at them with narrowed eyes. "Alfred! Nice to see you again. We need to see Vicki Vale."

Aldis moved aside, and Shawn went inside. Gus stepped in behind him, watching Aldis warily. "Wait here," Aldis said, and the door swung closed behind them. He disappeared down the hallway, and Eveline came back out of it a few moments later.

"Shawn, Gus," she said, rushing up to them. She didn't look anymore together than she had on their first meeting. She was wearing an expensive maroon blouse, but an old oversized grey sweater was pulled over it, and Shawn guessed it had been Harvey's. She didn't seem comfortable with expensive things, which was certainly a rare quality in a trophy wife. "I can't believe this. First I find out I have a step-daughter, and then that she—well, I just, I can't—"

"You don't believe it because it's not true," Shawn said, closing his eyes, one hand held up to his temple. "Holly didn't do it, I'm quite sure of that, there's someone else, someone that's been out of the picture for awhile." Shawn opened his eyes again and aimed them at Eveline. "Who was the maid before you hired Sani?"

Eveline frowned. "Andie Delahoy?" she asked. "Surely you don't believe she has anything to do with this?"

"Why was she fired?" Gus asked.

Eveline bit her lip, and pulled the sweater around her. "Harvey fired her," she said. "She'd worked for him almost her whole life, too. Practically grew up with Harvey, you know, her mother was the maid for his parents. It was very sudden. He said she was stealing, but he never said what she'd taken."

"Do you have any idea where she'd be?" Shawn asked.

Eveline nodded. "Yes, I think so. I set her up in a little apartment, just until she could get on her feet. I never told Harvey, of course."

"We're gonna need that address," Gus said.

Eveline walked to the entry table and slid a notepad towards her. She wrote down the address and handed it to Shawn. "I don't know why I never thought of Andie before," she said. "Because I liked her so well, I suppose, but after the way Harvey dismissed her, I can see where she'd be angry. I always tried to help her, though, I—" Eveline broke off, shaking her head. "Do you know why?"

"She's Holly's mother," Shawn said. "But if it's any consolation, I'm pretty certain that Harvey stopped his relationship with her when he married you."

Eveline let out a disbelieving laugh. "Small consolation," she said. "Since that's probably what started all of this." She brought a hand to her head. "I'm sorry, I think I need a moment to collect myself. Did you need anything else?"

"No, you've been a great help, thanks," Shawn said.

"Please, stay as long as you need, and call Aldis or Sani if you need anything," she said, before heading up the stairs towards her bedroom.

Shawn glanced around, but Aldis seemed to have disappeared as well. "Do you see Lurch anywhere?" he asked Gus.

"No, he went down the hall," Gus said. "I think he was giving me the evil eye."

"Could we focus on the case please?" Shawn demanded. "Did you hear what Eveline said? That's why Andie couldn't do it."

"Couldn't do what?" Gus asked.

"Couldn't kill her," Shawn said. "That's why she couldn't kill Eveline. Eveline was nice to her, but she was in the way, it explains both the motive to want her dead and the hesitation in carrying it out."

"You really think she's the murderer?" Gus asked.

"He made her live in this house with their kid, still working as his maid. And with Harvey and Eveline out of the way, Holly would get everything, this house, all the money. She would have known about Eveline's pills—it wouldn't have been hard to grab a couple, and she knows this place, she's lived her nearly her whole live. The code to the security system is her daughter's birthday, so she can come and go as she pleases," Shawn said, ticking everything off on his fingers. "That's motive, means, and opportunity, Gus!"

"We should call Lassiter," Gus said.

"Yeah, we should," Shawn said.

"Shawn," Gus started.

"He still doesn't trust me," Shawn snapped. "Say I do call him, what then? You think he'd actually come?"

"Yeah, Shawn, I think he would," Gus said.

Shawn bit his lip and looked down at his cellphone. Everything inside of him was itching to run and confront Andie, catch her off her guard and get a confession. He was good at it.

But trust went both ways, and Lassiter had his reasons for thinking Shawn wasn't telling him everything. He knew they had to start somewhere. Shawn sighed and hit the speed dial.

"Hey, Lassie?" Shawn said, when the call picked up. "I solved the case."

Shawn didn't hear Lassiter's response, because it was swallowed in the sound of the safety unlatching on a gun.

"You're gonna want to hang up now," someone said.


	8. Words of Wisdom from Beyonce

Note: I'm so sorry it's taken me so long to update! I've entirely missed my Halloween deadline, but I'm hoping to at least have this thing done by Christmas.

* * *

_"Hey, Lassie?" Shawn said, when the call picked up. "I solved the case." _

_Shawn didn't hear Lassiter's response, because it was swallowed in the sound of the safety unlatching on a gun. "You're gonna want to hang up now," a woman told him, her voice too clear and cold to be Eveline's. _

Shawn ended the call and glanced to the right. He could see the woman from Holly's picture standing just behind the barrel of the gun. "You must be Andie," he said.

Andie did not look much like her picture anymore. Her hair was blonder and tied back tightly, and she was wearing an expensive button-up white blouse with a blue blazer and matching pants. She looked more like a businesswoman on a lunch break than a crazy woman on a killing spree.

"And you must be Shawn," she said, and Shawn turned so he was facing her, while behind him, Gus took three steps further back.

Shawn had expected her to be out of control, but her blue eyes were clear and steady. If anything she seemed a little too certain of what she was doing—but then, Shawn knew, that was its own kind of madness. Sane people knew better than to be certain of anything.

"The police are on their way," Shawn told her. "You've been very careful so far, sure to make it all look like accidents, this isn't your style."

"You've already blown my cover," Andie said. "You proved Harvey was murdered. I'm still not quite sure how you knew that, but starting there my plans kept unraveling bit by bit, and now, well, now I haven't got anything left to lose."

"You've got Holly," Shawn said.

Andie glared at him. "Everything I've done I've done for Holly," she said. "Don't you dare preach about her to me."

"You never visited her in all those years she was banished to that place, did you?" Shawn asked. "Not even once. Even Harvey made time for her once a year."

"Shawn," Gus warned in a hiss. "Stop antagonizing the crazy person with a gun."

"I'm not crazy!" Andie screamed.

It clicked then in Shawn's mind: of course she wouldn't visit Holly there. What was it Lassiter had told him? _They may not let you out_. "I'm sorry," Shawn said. "I'm sorry, you're right, I've misjudged you." He held up his hands. "It wasn't that you didn't want to see her."

"That bastard took her away from me," Andie said. "He took her the one place I couldn't—that I couldn't—" She looked near tears, but her hands were still steady, the gun didn't waver even an inch.

"Andie—" Shawn started.

"All those years and I let him get away with it, I brought him his meals and I cleaned up after him and his little _wife_ and all the time I was dreaming up ways I could kill him, but I wasn't strong enough, I wasn't," Andie said, meeting Shawn's eyes and raising the gun to meet them too. "But I'm stronger now than I was before, and we both know you've brought this on yourself. You took Holly away this time and I'm not waiting another fifteen years to get her the vengeance she deserves."

"No," Shawn said. "I didn't take her away this time—you did. They took her because of what you did."

"Shawn," Gus warned again.

Shawn ignored him and stepped closer to Andie. "But Holly's not the one that really needs help, you are. You need to give yourself up. Killing me, that doesn't prove anything, it'll only get you locked up right there with her."

"Maybe it's time I was with her," Andie said.

"Not like that," Shawn said. "You had every reason to hate Harvey, people will understand that. But Eveline, she didn't even know about any of this. That's why you couldn't do it, isn't it? It's why you couldn't kill her? It's why you won't kill me."

"This should all be Holly's," Andie said. "It shouldn't be _hers_."

"Holly doesn't care about any of this," Shawn said. "All she ever wanted was you."

"I couldn't go there," Andie said. "I couldn't. I'm not crazy. I'm not."

"Of course not," Shawn said, and held out his hand. "So prove it. Give me the gun. We'll tell everyone the truth, the truth about Harvey and you and Holly. She shouldn't be a secret anymore."

"You think it's that easy?" Andie asked. "I can't ever get back what I lost."

"Have you been in Holly's room?" Shawn asked. "There's only one picture there, and it's of you. You haven't lost everything yet, you still have Holly. You can still try to make up for the time you lost."

"You don't know, you don't know what I've been through," Andie said. "You come here with your visions, telling everyone everything I've tried so hard to hide, but you don't _know anything_."

"I know you love your daughter," Shawn said. "I know that Aldis was the only person who ever tried to help you. He helped you set up that room, but it wasn't really for Holly, it was for you. You probably spent almost every night there, am I right?"

"This isn't a game," Andie cried. "You don't get points for right answers."

"No, it's not a game," Shawn agreed. "I'm sorry for what happened to you, but this? This isn't going to fix anything, and I know you don't think you can, but you can still fix it."

"They're going to lock me away," Andie said. "You think I'm stupid? My life is over."

"Holly's isn't," Shawn said. "You said you've done all this for her, but you haven't. You haven't been thinking of her, because if you had you would know she wouldn't want this. You need to think of Holly now, because she needs you."

"She doesn't know what she wants," Andie said. "She came home. A few weeks ago. I found her just sitting on her bed, At first I didn't think she was real, and when Harvey found out he wanted to send her away again, and that's when I knew what I had to do. I did it for her. To keep her safe."

"No one is going to make Holly stay at the hospital if she doesn't want to. I talked to a nurse at Acres and Groves, I'm sure she'll testify that Holly could have been released," Shawn said. "But they're never going to let her out of there as long as they think she's the one that killed Harvey. You really want to protect your daughter, you're going to have to confess."

Andie closed her eyes for a moment, and bit her lip, before she clicked the safety on the gun and flipped it so the handle was facing Shawn. "You have to promise me that Holly isn't going to stay in that place because of what I've done."

"I will do everything I can to make sure she doesn't have to," Shawn said. "That much I promise."

Andie held the gun out slowly, and Shawn took it from her. He heard Gus run out of the room behind him, probably to go throw up in the bathroom. "I loved him, you know," Andie said. "Isn't that the funniest thing? Even when I killed him, I still did. Maybe I am crazy."

Shawn looked down at the gun in his hands, unsure what to do with it now that he had it. It wasn't that he didn't know how to use it. Guns probably wouldn't scare him so much if he didn't know just what he was capable of when holding one in his hands. He popped out the clip and cleared the chamber. "What's that phrase about being crazy and in love?" Shawn asked, glancing up.

"Love that is not madness is not love," Andie said.

"That's Beyonce Knowles?" Shawn asked.

Andie frowned. "Pedro Calderon de la Barca," she said.

Shawn shook his head. "No, I was thinking of Beyonce Knowles. So crazy right now! Your love's got me—_Crazy In Love_, that's what I'm thinking of. We should all take comfort in her words."

Andie was looking at him like she thought maybe he was the one in need of a padded cell, so Shawn was glad that Lassiter choose that moment to storm the room.

Shawn had to admire Lassiter's entrance. He was still wearing his shades and held his gun with both hands, pointing it towards the ground but ready to raise it in a second, all coiled up with determination and anger and something else. "Andie Delahoy," he barked. "You're under arrest for the murder of Harvey Graves, and the attempted murder of Eveline Graves. Shawn, step away from her."

Shawn stepped back, bumping into Gus. "Why didn't he ask me to step back?" Gus demanded, moving away nonetheless, dragging Shawn with him.

"You're smart enough to do it without my asking," Lassiter snapped, as he pulled Andie's hands behind her back to cuff them.

Gus was appeased by this response. "That's true," he admitted, before glancing nervously at the gun in Shawn's hands.

"How did you get back here?" Shawn demanded.

"I went to let Lassiter in," Gus said indignantly. "I saw him on the monitor. What, you thought I just ran out on you?"

"You're right, what was I thinking?" Shawn asked. "That would have been entirely unprecedented."

Juliet and Buzz came running in. "Lassiter!" Juliet said breathlessly. "What's going on?"

"We found Harvey's murderer," Lassiter explained, handing Andie off to Buzz. "Get her to the station and book her."

Lassiter stepped towards Shawn, and Shawn took a step back. "Uh, Lassie, look—"

Lassiter ignored him, grabbing Shawn in a fierce hug, burying his head in Shawn's neck. "You're going to be the death of me," he said.

Shawn carefully reached around, not sure what to do with his hands at first, before grabbing handfuls of Lassiter's shirt and using them to hang on. "How did you know I would be here?" he asked. "I didn't leave a note for you this time."

"This time you didn't have to," Lassiter said. "I came looking on my own."

"Maybe psychic powers are catching," Shawn said weakly.

"Or maybe I followed your instinct and spoke to Holly," Lassiter said. "She saw everything, it was just like you said. I figured Andie had to have lived here with Holly; she used to read to her at night. So I had O'Hara run the name for me against Harvey Grave's employee records and she found an Andie Delahoy, fired just two weeks ago. I came here to ask Eveline about her. When you called, I was already on my way."

Lassiter pulled back and frowned at Shawn. "But you already knew all of that, didn't you?"

"I did," Shawn said. "But we both figured it out in the end, right? Maybe the method doesn't matter."

Lassiter frowned. "The method always matters."

"Oh my god!" Juliet screeched from behind them. "You really are together! That's just the most adorable thing ever!"

Shawn stepped to the side as Juliet tried to collect while Lassiter was still handing out the free hugs, and glanced over at Andie. She spoke to him without quite looking up. "You get it, right?" she asked quietly. "Why I did what I did."

"You're asking the wrong person," Shawn said. "You need to talk to Holly."

"Come on," Buzz said gently, and led her from the room. Behind them Lassiter was wiggling out of Juliet's grip, and with a sharp beat of his heart, Shawn realized he was still holding the gun and quickly set it down.

Lassiter appeared behind him, and reached across to pick the gun back up. "I got permission from Vick to come back early. I'm officially off medical leave."

"That's good," Shawn said.

"Means I have to go back to the station, fill out my report," Lassiter explained.

Shawn heard Eveline behind him, demanding to know what was going on. He figured the house was so big she hadn't even noticed the disturbance until now. Aldis was speaking lowly from somewhere too, and Shawn always hated cases like this, where it couldn't just be over. The ones where you could see the damage spreading further than a chalk outline.

"What about Holly?" Shawn asked.

"Juliet's going to cut her loose," Lassiter said.

Shawn nodded. "I'll go with her," he said. Lassiter grabbed his arm when he turned to leave.

"We need to talk, Shawn," he said.

"I think that's a first," Shawn said. "You _wanting_ me to talk."

"Well, there's a first time for everything," Lassiter said, and reluctantly released his grip. "If anything we're proof of that."

x x x x x x

Gus had declined to come with him to the psychiatric ward, despite Shawn's appealing arguments of lots of crazy people in need of pharmaceuticals, and while Shawn wasn't strictly supposed to be here himself, he still managed to make his way alone to Holly's room while Juliet argued with her doctor about whether or not she should be allowed to leave.

Shawn had no doubts that Juliet would win the argument. It didn't hurt that Holly had a home to go to. Eveline wanted her to come back, and promised that she and Aldis would take the care of her she deserved. They were even going to give her a whole room, one she could have all to herself.

"Shawn," Holly greeted when he entered, giving a slight smile. "It's nice to see you. Have you been dreaming yet?"

"Not yet," Shawn said. "But probably just because I haven't slept."

"That's no excuse not to dream," she said.

Shawn sat down beside her on the bed. She was sketching out a half-formed face with her red crayon, it could almost be a self-portrait except for the lines around the eyes and forehead, marks of age and worry that were worn by Andie instead.

"Hey, you want to get out of here?" he asked.

Holly paused, glancing up at him. "That really depends," she said.

"On what?" Shawn asked.

"On where I'd go from here," she said.

"How about home?" Shawn asked. "Eveline wants you to come stay with her and Aldis."

"Eveline is nice," Holly said. "I didn't like her at first, because she was the reason I had to leave, but she was kind, and she has pretty things. I don't think she's going to like me, though. No one would, Harvey always said. People don't like crazy people. We make them uncomfortable."

"Maybe we're all a little crazy," Shawn said. "Maybe you're just more honest about it."

"You're honest," Holly told him.

"I spend most of my time lying, actually," he said.

"You tell the truth about the things that matter," Holly said. "You just need to tell the truth to yourself."

"I'm not sure what you mean," he said.

"There has to be a reason you're afraid to sleep," Holly said. "I had nightmares because I was afraid of ending up here. It's strange but since I got here I haven't been afraid of it anymore, and now I've been dreaming all the time."

"What do you dream about?" Shawn asked.

"Flying," Holly said. "In my dreams I always have wings."

"We should have a Red Bull together sometime, my treat," Shawn said.

Holly didn't catch the reference, and she looked over at Shawn with solemn eyes. "Do you really think it's going to be okay?" she asked.

"Life's a work in progress," Shawn said. "I think you'll get there."

"They're going to lock her up, aren't they?" she asked. "For what she did?"

"Yes," Shawn said. "She turned herself in, but you need to know that she loves you very much."

"Love is kind of terrifying," Holly said. "Have you ever noticed that?"

"It does seem to be a recurring theme," Shawn said.

Juliet came through the door, throwing an exasperated glance at Shawn before turning to smile at Holly. "You ready to go home?" she asked.

Holly carefully packed away her crayons. "I'm ready to leave," she said, but Shawn knew that didn't mean quite the same thing.


	9. The Ten Foot Panda

Note: I really have no idea how this story got so out of hand that it looks like it's going to end up even longer than Dah-Ling, when it was supposed to be a short little follow up case. But at last we're nearly at the end—one short little epilogue after this, and then this series is finished up. Thanks to everyone for their support and reviews!

* * *

It was nearing ten when Shawn ended up at Lassiter's door.

Shawn had gone with Juliet to take Holly home, but he could admit, if only to himself, that he really hadn't needed to stay as long as he had. Eveline took to Holly instantly, and she'd given her the largest room in the house. Aldis was so pleased he hadn't even glared at Shawn all that much when he called him Alfred, and Shawn was guessing optimistically that the strange way his lips had curled was evidence that he could smile after all.

That unlikely group of people seemed to fit together rather well, and Shawn had high hopes for their futures. Even Sani had stopped making pudding long enough to put a real dinner together, and she no longer seemed so ready to leave. Things were looking less pleasant for Andie, but it was of course a requirement for a happy ending that the villain meet a sad end, however reluctantly they were cast. Shawn supposed he should be grateful for all the victories he could get. If he started having sympathy for the killers too, then he wasn't ever going to be satisfied with the end of the case.

Shawn unlocked the door and disabled the security alarm before heading to the kitchen. He was pulling the tab on a Pepsi when Lassiter walked into the room and leaned against the doorway to watch him. He didn't look surprised to see him there, because Shawn knew if he hadn't known it was him he would have barged into the room with his gun already drawn.

"How did you get in?" Lassiter asked.

"Please," Shawn said, gulping down some of the Pepsi. "I've had copies of your keys for years."

"And the security system?" Lassiter asked.

"It's the first four digits of the serial number on your gun," Shawn said. "You could have at least used the _last_ four digits. That probably would have taken me two tries."

Lassiter sighed, not bothering to throw something back at him. Shawn didn't think that was a good sign. "When you ran out earlier, I had this feeling I wouldn't ever see you again," he said.

"This place is my home," Shawn said, setting down the soda and pushing away from the counter. "Not this home specifically, because your take on interior design leaves something to be desired and if I lived here there would be lots of cool things like beanbag chairs, and lava lamps, but what I mean is Santa Barbara. It's my home. I've been running away from it for years but I always end up right back here, because this is where my father is, it's where Gus is. It's where you are."

Lassiter stepped forward and leaned down to kiss him. "You scare the hell out of me, Spencer," he whispered.

"I have it on good authority that love is a terrifying thing," Shawn said. "Maybe we're supposed to be scared. It means it's real."

"I'm sorry about before," Lassiter said. "It's just, you do, Shawn, you scare the hell out of me."

"I think it goes without saying that I also find you utterly terrifying," Shawn said, kissing Lassiter again. "And you don't have anything to apologize for, maybe we just don't work well together. Maybe we work better against each other than together, with you as the police detective, me as the dashing psychic."

"You're not psychic," Lassiter said.

"But I am dashing," Shawn said. "What we've been doing works. Maybe we just need to keep work separate from this."

"I'm not sure I can," Lassiter said.

"You've been doing it all along," Shawn said. "I was the one causing problems. I shouldn't expect you to trust my every gut instinct. It isn't fair."

"I do trust you, Shawn, but I still need to do things my way," Lassiter said. "We can't list 'gut instinct' on an arrest warrant."

"How about 'psychic vision'?" Shawn asked wryly.

"You're not psychic," Lassiter said again.

"I never should have confessed," Shawn said. "Now I don't get to protest anymore that I totally am psychic, and it's just no fun."

Lassiter grinned. "It's only fair that I get to win just this one argument," he said.

"Okay," Shawn said. "But only because you wear smug so well."

Lassiter placed his hands at Shawn's neck, kissing him again as he gave him a little tug down the hall. He pulled to a sudden stop and Shawn lost his balance, crashing into him with a frown.

"Spencer," Lassiter said slowly.

"Yes, Lassie?" Shawn asked, putting one hand on the wall to catch his balance.

"Why is there a picture of Guster on my wall?" he demanded.

Shawn laughed and tugged Lassiter towards the bedroom by the hand. "Took you long enough to notice that," he said. "Good thing it isn't real, or you'd be out $8,000,000."

"You're taking it down," Lassiter told him firmly.

"I'll take it down when you take down yours," Shawn said, and kissed Lassiter gently.

"Deal," Lassiter said reluctantly. "But so help me if you bring a lava lamp into this house, Spencer—"

Shawn pushed Lassiter down on the bed and grinned. "A compromise, then," he said. "I'll settle for a beanbag chair." Then he leaned down, kissing the side of Lassiter's neck.

"Okay, but only one," Lassiter told him. He decided this was really the worst possible way to go about an argument, because he probably would have agreed to a lot more than that, if Shawn had asked for it.

x x x x x x

Lassiter rolled over, and was pleasantly surprised when his arm didn't find empty air. Despite Shawn's assurances that he was not a morning person, he almost always woke before Lassiter. Lassiter snuggled closer to the warm body, frowning when he slipped his hand beneath the sheet and found fur instead of Shawn's smooth skin.

His eyes shot open and he slipped back along the bed. His stuffed panda stared happily back, with its beady black eyes and his pink tongue sticking out the side of his mouth. "I'm gonna kill him," Lassiter hissed, pushing up from the bed to stomp down the hall.

Lassiter pulled open the door to the basement. Shawn was sitting in the middle of the floor, like a kid a candy store, and Shawn would know how to look, having worked at a candy store. He was wearing jeans and Lassiter's old green 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt, which he must have found somewhere down here. Lassiter went down the stairs and glared down at him. Shawn glanced up and grinned, obviously not picking up on Lassiter's homicidal mood.

How anyone believed the guy was psychic was beyond him.

Shawn held up a pair of maroon and blue pants, his grin so wide it almost split his face. "You have MC Hammer pants," Shawn told him. "I think I could die happy, right now."

"That can be arranged," Lassiter snapped, grabbing them back. "I thought we had a deal."

"We did," Shawn said. "As you can see, I haven't organized anything. In fact, I think it looks even worse now than it did before."

"That wasn't the deal, the deal was you weren't to come down here ever," Lassiter said.

"But it's awesome down here," Shawn said. "How come you never told me you were in your Glee Club?"

"How do you know about that?" Lassiter demanded.

"I read your yearbook," Shawn said. "I never would have thought you were so active in school, and who knew they had a 'most likely to be a police officer' category? They must have made it special for you."

"Out," Lassiter said, pointing up the stairs.

Shawn ignored him easily. "If you didn't want me to come down here, you would have locked the door."

"I did lock the door," Lassiter snapped.

"Huh," Shawn said. "I must have picked the lock then, but my defense stands. You know I can pick locks. If you really didn't want me down here you should have equipped it with a retinal scanner. I probably wouldn't have gotten past that."

"Shawn," Lassiter said resignedly, dropping to sit by him.

"I have a right to know these things about you if we're going to be a real couple," Shawn said. "Like the fact that you liked MC Hammer? We might need couples therapy to get past that one. That's almost as bad as Gus's brief but terrifying obsession with the Spice Girls."

"It's not like my past fashion mistakes have any bearing on my life now," Lassiter said. "Why are you so interested in this old stuff?"

"Because it's yours. Anyway, it's only fair," Shawn said. "You know all of my secrets."

"I do?" Lassiter asked.

"Well, yeah," Shawn said. "There's really only the one. Mostly I'm an open book."

"I don't believe that for a second," Lassiter said.

"Okay, so maybe I was the one that was obsessed with the Spice Girls," Shawn said. "But at least I never wore a mini skirt."

"We're all thankful for that," Lassiter said. He frowned as he noticed the dark circles under Shawn's eyes. He wasn't sure when the last time he'd actually slept was, but it definitely looked to be catching up to him. "You're still not sleeping."

"I slept," Shawn said evasively, "but I couldn't stand it knowing all this was down here, it's like Christmas morning! You know, your house would be a lot more fun if this stuff was upstairs."

"It's down here for a reason," Lassiter said, though he was not entirely sure what it was. Victoria had always kept their house like a model home. He was used to storing anything that didn't look like it belonged in a magazine out of sight. "I don't ever use any of it."

"Things don't always have to be useful," Shawn told him, spinning a trophy from some little league game or another in his hands. "And you never told me, what's the story with Eugene?"

"Eugene?" Lassiter asked.

"I named your panda Eugene," Shawn said. "I was sure that you'd neglected to name him yourself."

"There's no story," Lassiter told him. "I already said, I won it at a carnival."

"That raises so many questions. Firstly, you go to carnivals?" Shawn asked. "Why don't you ever take me out to carnivals? We never go anywhere fun. We always just go and look at dead bodies."

"Carnival, just the one," Lassiter said. "I wanted to play the game, I won, I got the panda and had no one to give to it. End of story."

Shawn frowned. "If that's the end of the story, then why do you still have it?"

Lassiter glared at him. "Why do you have to know everything?"

"Just wired that way, I guess," Shawn said. "Naturally curious. How about this, I'll tell you something you don't know about me, if you tell me something I don't know about you."

"I thought you were an open book," Lassiter said.

Shawn grinned. "I am, but it's a very big book."

"Why did you leave?" Lassiter asked. "The first time?"

"That, you should already know," Shawn said. "You met my father, right? Anyway, you're not doing it right. I said I'd tell you something you don't know. I didn't say you'd get to choose what it was."

"Okay, then," Lassiter said. "Tell me something. And it better not be Spice Girls related, I already know more than I wanted to about that."

"Okay," Shawn said. "For awhile, when I was younger, I actually wanted to be a cop. Wanted to be just like dear old dad."

"What changed?" Lassiter asked.

"I wanted to be a million other things, too," Shawn said, looking way. "It's your turn."

"There were actually, a few times, very few, and very short, where I thought you might actually be psychic," Lassiter said, and winced.

"It was the dinosaur, wasn't it?" Shawn asked.

"Yeah, it was the dinosaur," Lassiter said.

"It's nothing to be ashamed of," Shawn said, pushing Lassiter down as he moved to straddle him. "I can be very convincing."

"Hey, Shawn?" Lassiter said, as he leaned up to kiss him.

"Yeah?" Shawn asked.

"You can have the panda, if you want," he said.

Shawn grinned, and laid his head on Lassiter's chest. "I thought you'd never ask."

Lassiter moved his arm around him, allowing himself a rare, genuine smile. "Shawn?" he said quietly, but there was no response. Shawn was sound asleep.

He leaned over to place a kiss on the top of Shawn's head. "It's all yours," Lassiter whispered.

x x x x x x

Shawn woke up wrapped in a beat-up Lone Ranger quilt, still in the basement. He frowned as he sat up, noticing that his Lassiter-pillow was gone. There was a note beside him: _Got called in to tie up some loose ends and didn't want to wake you. XOXO Lassiter._ Shawn laughed at the XOXO, and decided to hold onto the note for blackmail purposes.

He kept the quilt wrapped around him and went upstairs. Lassiter had taken the wanted posters down. They were sitting in a stack on the kitchen counter, with Burton "Buster" Guster on top. Shawn frowned when he saw what was sitting on the counter beside them, and let the quilt drop to the floor as he reached out to grab it.

It was Holly's diary, still unlatched. Lassiter must have found it in the car and left it here. Shawn reached for Lassiter's phone and dialed Gus. "Gus!" he said cheerfully. "Guess what? It's Monday, that's a Gus day, and I need a ride."

"I have to be to work in like an hour, Shawn," Gus said. "Take your motorcycle."

"Look out your front window," Shawn said. "You gave me a ride yesterday, remember? My motorcycle's still there. At least drop me off at your place. Right now I'm stranded at Lassiter's."

"You could take a cab," Gus said.

"And pay him in Skittles?" Shawn asked.

"I'll be there in ten minutes," Gus said, long-suffering, before ending the call.

Shawn pulled on his Kangaroos and then one of Lassiter's suit jackets, because the weather was still strangely winter-like for Santa Barbara at this time of year, though the freak storm had passed them by. He grabbed Holly's diary and ran out to meet Gus.

Gus eyed him speculatively as he got in the car, taking note of the too large blazer and the 'Kiss Me, I'm Irish' shirt. "I'm guessing things between you and Lassiter are back on track?" he asked as he pulled out into the street.

"Not really, I was just robbing the place," Shawn told him.

Gus snorted. "What's so important that I had to rush over here?"

"Don't tell me I interrupted you during your Sponge Bob time again," Shawn said, before slumping in the seat. "You can just drop me off with my bike."

Gus glanced at him, and then shook his head. "I still have some time. Where are we going?"

"Eveline's," Shawn said. "I've got something I need to give back to Holly."

Gus saw the diary and nodded. "I'm glad she didn't have to stay at that hospital," he said.

Shawn nodded, and tried not to think about how Andie did. "Yeah, I think she'll be alright now," he said. "And hey, no ghosts."

"There coulda been ghosts, Shawn," Gus said. "You don't know. They're everywhere."

"They could be in this car with us, right now," Shawn said wryly, and laughed when Gus tightened his grip on the steering wheel.

"You laugh, but one of these times you're not going to have an explanation for something we see," Gus said.

"Well, when that happens, I'll start buying salt in bulk, but right now, let's just take a moment to reflect about how very right I was, once again," Shawn said.

"You were wrong about the butler," Gus said smugly.

"It was the maid. She's like a girl butler," Shawn said.

"They're completely different job titles, Shawn," Gus said.

"Really? What do you call a guy maid then? Or a girl butler, for that matter?" he asked. "Man-maid? Gutler?"

"It's still just maid and butler, whatever the gender," Gus said. "Which means you were wrong."

"Well, I may have been wrong, but at least my suspect had actually been a living person," Shawn said. "You were wrong and your suspect was dead, so I think I still win."

Gus pulled to a stop in front of the gate, and it opened for them once again without prompting. He frowned. "They aren't expecting us this time," he said. "Say what you want, I still think there's something wrong with this place."

Gus pulled to a stop, looking nervously out the window. The clouds had were dark grey, and Gus could have sworn they hadn't looked that way when they were still a couple of blocks away. "I'll just wait here," he said.

Shawn rolled his eyes and got out of the car. He was starting up the steps when he heard someone call his name. He frowned and started back down them, heading towards the side of the house.

"Shawn!" Shawn looked up to see Holly sitting about fifteen up on the limb of a large tree. She waved down at him. She was wearing a bright new blue dress and black Mary Jane shoes. Shawn thought she looked a little like Alice, returning from Wonderland.

"What are you doing up there?" he asked.

Holly carefully made her way down, using he tree limbs as deftly as if it were a ladder. "I used to go up there all the time," she explained. "I remember it being a lot higher than it is, but I suppose I was smaller then."

"How are you doing?" Shawn asked. "Do you like it here?"

"Very much," Holly said. "It's the same place it always was, only it feels like it's not. I think I like it better this way."

"I brought this back," Shawn said, and held the diary out.

Holly quickly took it from his hands, opening it as if to assure herself all of her words were still there. "Thank you," she said. "You're really very kind."

"It's yours," Shawn said. "You were right, it wasn't nice of me to take it in the first place."

"I know you were just trying to find out the truth," Holly said. "And did you?"

"Andie confessed," Shawn said. "Everyone knows the truth now."

"Even her, I suppose," Holly said. "I'm not so sure she did before."

"Have you seen her?" he asked.

"Yes," Holly said. "She's at the hospital, in one of those white rooms. She seems calmer. Maybe it was the same for her as it was for me. Maybe she realized it wasn't so scary after all." Holly snapped the lock on her diary closed. "Or maybe it's the drugs."

"Are you going to be okay?" Shawn asked her.

"Shouldn't you be telling me?" she asked. "Everyone seems to have their opinion."

"I really only care to hear yours," Shawn said.

Holly smiled. "I guess I don't know," she said. "But I'm better. How are you?"

"I'm better, too," Shawn said.

Holly nodded. "Does that mean that you're dreaming again?"

"I'm sleeping again, but I don't think I ever really stopped dreaming," he said.

"That's a good answer," Holly said, and smiled. "I should be going back inside, it looks like rain. You have a pleasant day, Shawn. Come again soon."

"Holly, would you do something for me?" Shawn asked.

"What is it you would like me to do?" she asked, holding her diary to her chest, like she was afraid he was going to ask for it back.

Shawn smiled as he stepped away. "Don't be so polite," he told her, before spinning on his heel to head back.


	10. Wednesday is Not a Gus Day

Note: It's finally done! Thanks again to everyone who stuck with me through this thing, I hope you enjoy the end!

* * *

Gus narrowed his eyes when he opened his door and found Shawn standing on his doorstep, hands clasped behind his back and trying to look innocent. It was never a good sign when Shawn didn't call first, it usually meant he wasn't going to take no as an answer for whatever insane idea he'd come up with this time.

"Shawn," Gus said warily.

"Good, you're dressed," Shawn said. "I was afraid I would find you in your pajamas again. And it's not that you don't look adorable in them, but we're kind of on a tight schedule. We have to be at my dad's in like ten minutes for dinner."

"I have today off from you, Shawn, it's Wednesday," Gus said. "You're not very good at following the rules."

"You say that like it's some new, surprising fact about me," Shawn said. "Come on, Gus! I need you as a buffer between Lassie and my father in case he goes all Super Dad again or something. I'd do it for you, you know I would. When you were having problems with your family last Christmas, I was right there with you!"

"You were the reason we were having problems!" Gus protested.

"That's really not the point," Shawn said. "The point is that I was there."

Gus sighed. He knew a losing battle when he saw one, and he figured it was best just to give in. "Fine, but I get shotgun," Gus said.

"It's a deal, buddy," Shawn said, and they stared at each for a beat, and then they both bolted for Lassiter's car.

Shawn made it to the door first, but Gus pushed at him and followed him in, forcing Shawn to the middle, so that he ended up sitting with the police radio between his legs. Lassiter watched this display rather calmly, and then heaved a sigh.

"Remind me again why it is I'm with you?" Lassiter asked.

"You're holding out for my _Explosion Gigantesca de Romance_ royalties checks," Shawn said. "I promised you a house on the beach and a cherry red Ferrari."

"That show has a daily budget of two hundred dollars," Gus said, pushing Shawn a little further away to settle in the seat. "The only way you're buying a Ferrari is if it's made by Matchbox."

Shawn adjusted one of his legs abruptly, and Gus let out a yelp of pain before slapping Shawn in the shoulder. Shawn moved to strike back and Lassiter caught his hand. "Make no mistake," Lassiter said, "I will shoot you both if you harm a single speck of finish on this car."

Lassiter released Shawn's hand and pulled out into the road, pushing his sunglasses on with one hand while he steered with the other. Shawn noted that he was putting on his game face, the one he used when he was about to go round up a suspect, or visit his mother.

Shawn moved uncomfortably, jarring Lassiter every few moments. "Okay, let's go over the plan," he said.

"What plan?" Gus asked.

"The 'how to survive dinner with Henry' plan," Shawn said.

"I don't know about you two, but I'm gonna be fine," Gus said. "Mr. Spencer likes me."

"Why do you think you're here?" Shawn asked. "You're the designated buffer. That and I really could use some of those anti-anxiety pill samples. Tonight will go much more smoothly if we crush them up in my father's food."

"I didn't bring any samples, Shawn," Gus snapped. "And I don't give them out to people intent on illicit activities." Gus smiled angelically at Lassiter. "I'm very careful with my samples."

"Just keep them out of my food, and we're fine," Lassiter told him gruffly.

"Focus, people," Shawn said. "We're going into the lion's den here."

"Shawn, you're a grown man," Gus said. "You need to stop being afraid of your father."

"Oh, like you're not afraid of him," Shawn said. "When he grabbed you by the ankle you were screaming bloody murder."

"That's out of context," Gus snapped. "I thought he was Pennywise."

"So let me get this straight," Shawn said. "I'm too old to be afraid of my father, but it's perfectly acceptable for you to still believe a killer clown lives in the sewers, intent on eating you alive?"

Gus didn't meet his eyes. "Yes," he said.

"That's ridiculous," Shawn told him. "And everyone's afraid of my father. Even Lassie."

"I'm not afraid of Henry," Lassiter said, as he pulled into the Spencer driveway.

"What's with all this denial?" Shawn asked. "It's okay to admit to fear. My dad's a scary guy. If you go in there unprepared it's going to get us all killed."

Gus rolled his eyes and got out of the car. "We're going to dinner, not to war."

Shawn followed him out. "That's what you think now," he said. "But you're just blinded by the thought of dessert. He'll probably murder us both, and then give you a cupcake so that you'll swear in court you didn't see a thing."

"Sounds good to me," Gus said. "I won't have to listen to you two bicker anymore, and I'll have a cupcake."

Lassiter took off his sunglasses. "Wait a second," he said. "You're complaining about me and Shawn bickering? The two of you haven't shut up since we picked you up."

"That's not bickering," Gus protested. "It's witty banter."

"He's right," Shawn said. "We bicker, and Gus and I banter. The difference is the sexual tension." He started up the porch, and went inside without knocking. "We're here!" he shouted. He started for the kitchen and then pulled to a dead stop, causing Gus to bang into him and Lassiter to pause a step short of doing the same thing.

"There's cupcakes," Shawn said nervously. "This is not a good omen."

Henry had a cupcake tree, with neatly decorated cupcakes sitting in each tier. He'd no doubt ordered it straight from the Martha Stewart catalogue. Gus's eyes grew huge and he started towards them, but Shawn held him back.

Henry entered the kitchen from the other side. "You're late," he said gruffly.

"Blame Gus," Shawn said. "He made me waste like three minutes convincing him to come."

"I thought tonight it was going to be just the happy couple," Henry said.

"So you can interrogate us?" Shawn asked. "It's going to be a little harder with a witness, isn't it?"

Henry grinned wryly. "What do you think the cupcakes are for? Help yourself, Gus."

"Thank you, Mr. Spencer," Gus said, disentangling himself from Shawn's grip to make a beeline for the cupcakes.

"I knew it!" Shawn shouted. "You're like an evil, baking genius! You've probably dosed the frosting with truth serum."

Henry crossed his arms and leaned against the kitchen sink. "You're not going to distract me this time. We need to talk."

Lassiter signed and nodded. "I know we do," he said. "And I know you're worried about my intentions, you're welcome to ask me anything that you—"

"Not you, _you_ I trust," Henry said, turning to look at Shawn. "You."

"Me?" Shawn said.

"Here I am, wasting all this time worrying about your love life, when I should be worrying about your _life_," Henry snapped. "I heard about what happened at the Graves mansion. What the hell were you thinking, Shawn? Don't you ever learn?"

"I don't think I like where this is going," Shawn said to Lassiter. "Say something mean and overbearing so he focuses his attention back on you."

Lassiter shook his head. "I don't want to interrupt," he said, raising his hands as he stepped out of the line of fire.

"I'm really starting to suspect you're doing it on purpose," Henry said, leaning into Shawn's space. "You've had as many guns pointed at you in three years as I have in thirty."

"They're not always pointed at me," Shawn protested. "Sometimes they're pointed at Gus."

"Why do you say that like it's better?" Gus demanded through a mouthful of cupcake.

"This has to stop, Shawn," Henry said. "You need to stop and think before you go putting in yourself in these situations. Enough is enough."

"Hold on," Shawn said, holding out his hands. "This is not the way this is supposed to go, you're supposed to be harassing Lassie, not me!"

Lassiter crossed his arms. "Well, he's got a point, you know, you do that," he said. "You put yourself in danger. You called me this time, and I'm glad that you did, but you should have called me the moment you figured it out. We could have gone to Eveline's together."

"See?" Henry snapped. "If you don't listen to me, at least listen to Lassiter."

"But I don't listen to either of you!" Shawn protested. "It's a vital part of my personality. Gus! Help me out here!"

Gus was carefully unwrapping his second cupcake. "You don't listen to me, either," he said helpfully.

Henry turned back to Lassiter. "I know my son's a handful, believe me, so I want to thank you for looking out for him," he said. "I don't even want to think what might have happened if you hadn't shown up."

"Nothing would have happened!" Shawn said indignantly. "I'd already disarmed her! Lassiter looked really cool and all, coming to the rescue, but—"

"No thanks necessary," Lassiter said, as though Shawn hadn't spoken. "Though it is kind of like my new full time job."

"But—" Shawn started.

"Hey, imagine having to raise him," Henry said. "He was already climbing out of his crib before he was two years old, and things haven't gotten any easier since."

"If anything, I imagine they've gotten worse," Lassiter agreed.

Shawn, resenting that he was being ignored, walked away and sat down beside Gus. He glared over at his father and Lassiter, who had started trading tips on how best to handle him. "They're getting along," he told Gus. "This is like my worst fear come to life."

"I thought you wanted them to get along," Gus said.

"I wanted them not to kill each other," Shawn said. "But this is worse. Much worse. They're going to be _friends_."

"It is a scary thought," Gus agreed. "Mr. Spencer and Lassiter, joining forces."

"My life as I know it is over, isn't it?" Shawn asked, slumping dejectedly.

"Here," Gus said. "Have a cupcake."

The _End_.


End file.
